I have several problems with draft-ietf-smime-escertid-01.txt.
In RFC 2634, we have section "5.4 called Signing Certificate Attribute
Definition"
The proposal is to add a section 5.4.1 to define the v2 version first (!)
and then the current version (with SHA-1). This should be done in the reverse
way:
- first a section 5.4.1 to define the current version (with SHA-1),
- then a section 5.4.2 to define the v2 version.
After this restructuring, I have some problems with the text itself :
Issue 1 (page 4):
"Applications SHOULD recognize both attributes as long as
they consider SHA-1 to be sufficiently descriminating".
"descriminating" is not crystal clear for me. Would it be possible
to have the same idea expressed using a different wording ?
Issue 2 (pages 4 & 5):
There is a duplication of the same paragraph (one is enough):
"The signing certificate attribute is designed to prevent the simple
substitution and re-issue attacks, and to allow for a restricted set
of authorization certificates to be used in verifying a signature".
Issue 3 (page 7):
"The issuer/serial number pair would therefore normally be sufficient
to identify the correct signing certificate. (This assumes the same
issuer name is not re-used from the set of trust anchors.)"
The assumption between the parenthesis is insufficient to correctly identify
the correct signing certificate. The sentence needs to be changed.
Issue 4 (page 7):
"In the cases
where the issuer/serial number pair is not used in the sid or the
issuer/serial number need to be signed, they should be placed in the
issuerSerial field of the ESSCertIDv2 structure."
The issuer/serial number pair can be used in the sid, but since it is unsigned,
it is insufficient to correctly identify the correct signing certificate.
So this rational is incorrect. The sentence needs to be changed.
Finally, I would propose that the next draft proposes a global replacement
for section 5.4 to make sure that the whole section is consistent
(and that the text in it is not redondant).
Denis
A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.
This draft is a work item of the S/MIME Mail Security Working Group of the
IETF.
Title : ESS Update: Adding CertID Algorithm Agility
Author(s) : J. Schaad
Filename : draft-ietf-smime-escertid-01.txt
Pages : 18
Date : 2006-4-18
In the original Enhanced Security Services for S/MIME draft, a
structure for cryptographically linking the certificate to be used in
validation with the signature was introduced, this structure was
hardwired to use SHA-1. This document allows for the structure to
have algorithm agility and defines new attributes to deal with the
updating.
A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-smime-escertid-01.txt
To remove yourself from the I-D Announcement list, send a message to
i-d-announce-request(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org with the word unsubscribe in the body
of the message.
You can also visit https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/I-D-announce
to change your subscription settings.
Internet-Drafts are also available by anonymous FTP. Login with the username
"anonymous" and a password of your e-mail address. After logging in,
type "cd internet-drafts" and then
"get draft-ietf-smime-escertid-01.txt".
A list of Internet-Drafts directories can be found in
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html
or ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf/1shadow-sites.txt
Internet-Drafts can also be obtained by e-mail.
Send a message to:
mailserv(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org(_dot_)
In the body type:
"FILE /internet-drafts/draft-ietf-smime-escertid-01.txt".
NOTE: The mail server at ietf.org can return the document in
MIME-encoded form by using the "mpack" utility. To use this
feature, insert the command "ENCODING mime" before the "FILE"
command. To decode the response(s), you will need "munpack" or
a MIME-compliant mail reader. Different MIME-compliant mail readers
exhibit different behavior, especially when dealing with
"multipart" MIME messages (i.e. documents which have been split
up into multiple messages), so check your local documentation on
how to manipulate these messages.
Below is the data which will enable a MIME compliant mail reader
implementation to automatically retrieve the ASCII version of the
Internet-Draft.
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-ID: <2006-4-18160113(_dot_)I-D(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
ENCODING mime
FILE /internet-drafts/draft-ietf-smime-escertid-01.txt
Regards,
Denis Pinkas