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Re: [openpgp] ECC Curve OIDs section

2021-02-28 19:49:38
On 2021-02-26 at 23:00 -0500, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:
I would prefer to see the new section "ECC Curve OID" as 9.5 instead of 9..2
The other blocks are clear registries used directly. "ECC Curve OID"
are a different case since they are actually parameter inside Public key 
with
certain ids. It's probably as 9.2 because a former draft likely referred to 
it
from 9.1, but that doesn't seem to be the case, and is only referred from 
other
completely separate sections.

There is a sense that an ECC Curve OID is a subtype of public-key
algorithms, so putting it closer to public-key algorithms is appealing.
But i think this argues not for leaving it as 9.2, but rather as a
subsection of the "Public-key Algorithms" section of the top-level
"Constants" header (i.e. 9.1.1).

fwiw, while we're nit-picking, this section ought to be named "ECC Curve
OIDs" (in the plural)

Seems like there are three choices:

 a) leave "ECC Curve OIDs" as §9.2

 b) make "ECC Curve OIDs" a subsection of "§9.1 Public-key Algorithms",
    i.e., §9.1.1

 c) move "ECC Curve OIDs" to the end of the "§9 Constants", i.e., §9.5

What do other folks think?


I'm thinking that perhaps (d) we should not treat this as a registry at
all, but as an specification for how to produce the Curve OIDs from the
OID themselves (basically, the text below the table, as an spec).
Then make the table itself informational.
This could be kept at section 9 or moved to section 13.
This links with the point mentioned by Werner during the call that
implementing other curves is automatic as they are identified by their
OID.




PS: It would be good to include a note as well at 9.1 mentioning the
public key algorithms which depend on a Curve parameter: ECDH (18),
ECDSA (19) and -when added- EdDSA (22).



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