Re: In support of ASN.1 key formats

On Mon, Mar 21, 2016 at 4:05 PM, Harry Halpin <hhalpin@w3.org> wrote:

>
>
> On 03/21/2016 06:49 PM, Mitar wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > I read in this ticket
> > https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=532728 that
> > there are discussions in the working group to drop ASN.1 key formats
> > support from the web crypto standard.
> >
> > >From my work on creating a web crypto-compatible node.js module I
> > would like to add my support for keeping ASN.1 key formats around.
> > ASN.1 is widely supported and it is relatively easy to work with.
> > Making formats compatible allows really thin layer of abstractions
> > around existing crypto libraries.
>
> We would not drop it from existing implementations.


That's not correct, Harry.

If it's removed from the spec, then it becomes an open question as to
whether implementations desire to keep it in the future.

If the answer is they do desire it, then it shouldn't be removed from the
spec.
If the answer is they don't desire it, then it should be removed from
implementations, as part of those implementations committments not to
fragment the web.

So if it gets removed from the spec, due to the non-responsiveness on the
list to the questions posed, or changed to be non-interoperable (as your
past suggestions have resulted in), then it will be removed from Chromium.
That's the only open and transparent way forward - if other UAs aren't
responsively committed towards solving the issues, the only responsible
action Chromium can take with respect to the open web is to remove what
would, in effect, be a Chromium-specific extension.

That's why solving this matters. Because we know users want this.


Of course, we are
> working to see if we can get interop here, as discussed in today's
> meeting. Jim Schaad will have a proposal out shortly.
>