On Thu, Mar 18, 1999 at 01:24:33PM +0000, Charles Lindsey wrote:
In <19990317090043(_dot_)36237(_at_)main(_dot_)templetons(_dot_)com> Brad
Templeton <brad(_at_)templetons(_dot_)com> writes:
On Wed, Mar 17, 1999 at 11:54:40AM -0500,
Valdis(_dot_)Kletnieks(_at_)vt(_dot_)edu wrote:
There is no need to "sign" a "signed" header. Can you tell me why you
would want to do this? A "signed" header (and any certificate) is
verifiable on its own when paired with the signed headers and body. I
No, the standard proposed a complex mechanism of self-signing parts of
the signed header (a canonicalized expansion of the header list, and
all the other parts except the signature)
There is an example in my Draft of a Signed header that is itself signed.
I think it was a realistic case, though I agree it will not be common.
My understanding is that your canonicalization algorithm, in order to
prepare the hash stream, had the signer build the partial form of their
own "signed" header, by canonicalizing the header list among other things
until they had the form without the signature, and that this would be
included in the hash stream.
Is this not correct? Such a step is a non-necessary complexity. If
the header list is tampered with, the signature will be immediately
invalidated anyway.