Re: Can I only use JsonWebKey2020 with NIST approved curves like P-256 in the specification?

Thanks for your question Brent!

TLDR I don't think there are any official suite names for multibase encoded
NIST curves... UnsupportedVerificationMethod2020 is my not so subtle swipe
at the strategy of requiring a unique name for every registered kty and alg
in IANA :)

We created JsonWebKey2020 and JsonWebSignature2020 because we don't
think you should have to have a new key and signature type for every JWS
alg.

The questions you are asking are a major part of why we created these
suites... in essence, we believe Linked Data should work with JOSE
seamlessly.

We thought "UnsupportedVerificationMethod2020" was too snarky, so we
decided to just stop saying it, and to make `JsonWebKey2020` support base58
as well.

our libraries handle key conversion for you so you don't need to worry
about which side of this war you are on.

I'm actually working on updating the contexts to align the new did
core structurers right now:

https://github.com/transmute-industries/ns.did.ai/blob/master/suites/jws-2020/v1/index.json#L25

We can very easily allow publicKeyJwk, publicKeyBase58, publicKeyMultibase
or just publicKeyJwk.

How do folks want this to work?

OS








On Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 5:05 PM Brent Shambaugh <brent.shambaugh@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I have this for a NIST approved curve in my DID document:
>
>     "publicKeyJwk":  {
>           "crv": "P-256",
>           "kty": "EC",
>           "x": "u-cNviWRiM3i9wGjUvOB-0XyPpIb5rAwmE8o8jDBte7Y",
>           "y": "uHNNnF7isXk_qitI9yNB4PCMY7krXqA224AJq0LByok8",
>         },
>         "type": "JsonWebKey2020"
>
> I thought that nist based keys like P-256, p-384, and p-521 did not have a
> supported name type so one had to use the  catch all JsonWebKey2020. I
> cannot remember if there is a link.
>
> I'm trying to replicate my reasoning. I believe I looked at:
> https://www.w3.org/TR/did-spec-registries/ ,
>
> https://github.com/w3c/did-spec-registries/blob/main/cddl/verificationMethodTypes.cddl
> ,
>
> https://github.com/transmute-industries/did-key.js/blob/e0b4facde18691f914bb184dbb64e678601f0a88/packages/test-vectors/src/did-core-conformance/p-256/p-256.json#L23-L29
> , and perhaps several others
> and concluded that I could not match the a type property with a
> publicKeyBase58 encoded key .
>
>
> The earlier Transmute commit uses "type": "
> UnsupportedVerificationMethod2020"  in conjunction with a publicKeyBase58
> encoding. I take it that Orie is a significant driver in the specification,
> so he would be in the know.
>
> For the record the new version of this file no longer contains this block
> of code
> https://github.com/transmute-industries/did-key.js/blob/master/packages/test-vectors/src/did-core-conformance/p-256/p-256.json
> .
>
> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7517#section-3 told me that I could
> express a publicKeyJwk key as a P-256 key. This was supported by
> JsonWebKey2020. There may have been another place that I read that p-256
> was only supported by
> JsonWebKey2020.
>
> Am I correct that I can only use JsonWebKey2020 and Json web keys? Not
> JsonWebKey2020  or some mystery type and publickeybase58 based on the
> specification?
>
> Thanks for your time, i
>
> -Brent Shambaugh
>
> GitHub: https://github.com/bshambaugh
> Website: http://bshambaugh.org/
> LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brent-shambaugh-9b91259
> Skype: brent.shambaugh
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/Brent_Shambaugh
> WebID: http://bshambaugh.org/foaf.rdf#me
>


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*ORIE STEELE*
Chief Technical Officer
www.transmute.industries

<https://www.transmute.industries>