We agree that having a id-ct-mime would be a good thing. We also seem to agree
that id-ct-asciiTextWithCRLF signals that the content must be be processed with
the exact canonicalization specified in RFC 5485 before signing and validation.
I was wrong when I said that I didn't see the need for the type for the content
type you are focused on; I was actually looking at the other two types that
were defined in RFC 5485, id-ct-xml and id-ct-pdf, which do not use the
canonicalization rules given in the RFC. It was from there that I worry that
this indicates that all types, not only those that need canonicalization, need
to be defined, given that we have no definition for any.
This thread was prompted by Russ asking that, when Internet Drafts and RFCs no
longer are expected to be all-ASCII, do we need another CMS content type. To
me, this means making up a new canonicalization form for these, but we will
also need to make one up for all the for other types that might be published.
Further, it pointed out to me that the canonicalization that is defined in RFC
5485 is already fragile. It doesn't apply to two of the types defined in that
RFC, and it makes a false assumption that all inputs are really ASCII
(sometimes, non-ASCII characters slip through).
So, I still question whether or not RFC 5485 did the right thing in defining
id-ct-xml and id-ct-pdf, and particularly in not defining something that could
be called id-ct-unknown.
--Paul Hoffman
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