ietf-dkim
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RE: [ietf-dkim] Base issue: multiple linked signatures

2006-12-26 18:32:50
I don't quite see what the objective is here.

There is a lot of information that a sufficiently dedicated client might infer 
from multiple signatures made by the same signer but I am not sure that there 
is much value to be gained unless particular multiple signature practices are 
in widespread use.

Multiple signatures made by different signers are an entirely different matter, 
in a store and forward world there will always be the possibility of damage 
occuring. But all we need for the purposes of spam control is one trusted party 
that volunteers to be held responsible.

Equally multiple signatures of the same content under different signature 
algorithms are useful to allow transition from a legacy signature algorithm to 
a stronger one.

If the purpose of the signature is for debugging the sending path rather than 
for accepting responsibility then I think we are talking about something that 
is beyond base.


-----Original Message-----
From: ietf-dkim-bounces(_at_)mipassoc(_dot_)org 
[mailto:ietf-dkim-bounces(_at_)mipassoc(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of EKR
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 7:08 PM
To: Paul Hoffman
Cc: DKIM Mailing List
Subject: Re: [ietf-dkim] Base issue: multiple linked signatures

Paul Hoffman <paul(_dot_)hoffman(_at_)domain-assurance(_dot_)org> writes:

At 3:43 PM -0800 12/26/06, EKR wrote:
I don't know what's being proposed here, but as a technical matter 
it's not really the case that you can't individually insulate each 
header from breakage without doing a separate signature for 
each one. 
Rather, you could simply include digests for the header 
value in the 
header specification, i.e.,

   DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha256; d=example.net; s=brisbane;
      c=simple; q=dns/txt; i=(_at_)eng(_dot_)example(_dot_)net;
      t=1117574938; x=1118006938;

h=from=<digest-value>:to=<digest-value>:subject-<digest-value>
:date=<digest-value>;
      ...

This is actually less information than the z= tag, which 
says what the 
value was when signed.

Yes, that's true, so even without this optimization it's not 
true that you need to a separate signature for each header.

That said, this representation is more compact, so it's a tradeoff. 

It also doesn't come with this restriction:

       Verifiers MUST NOT use the header field names or copied values
       for checking the signature in any way.  Copied header field
       values are for diagnostic use only.

But of course that restriction could be relaxed.

-Ekr


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