Deprecating RFC 8785

I have seen references to RFC 8785 in various documents related to Verified Credentials.  However, it seems that JOSE became the standard deployment-wise.

Although I'm the author of RFC 8785, I'm fine with that because there is a successor that doesn't require specific canonicalization processing; it builds on deterministic encoding outlined by a regular IETF standard (RFC 8949), that defines CBOR.  What RFC 8949 doesn't specify is how to interact with CBOR in a platform-neutral way.  This lead to something currently known as CBOR::Core: https://github.com/cyberphone/cbor-core#main

Today I released the third reference implementation of this profile, targeting Python.

https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model-2.0/#example-use-of-the-id-property

Using application/vc+jwt
eyJraWQiOiJFeEhrQk1XOWZtYmt2V...RUvAoZohvSJWeagwj_Ajw

Using CBOR::Core + an Embedded Signature, here shown in diagnostic notation:
{
   "id": "http://university.example/credentials/3732",
   "type": ["VerifiableCredential", "ExampleDegreeCredential"],
   "issuer": "https://university.example/issuers/565049",
   "@context": [
     "https://www.w3.org/ns/credentials/v2",
     "https://www.w3.org/ns/credentials/examples/v2"
   ],
   "validFrom": "2010-01-01T00:00:00Z",
   "credentialSubject": {
     "id": "did:example:ebfeb1f712ebc6f1c276e12ec21",
     "degree": {
       "name": "Bachelor of Science and Arts",
       "type": "ExampleBachelorDegree"
     }
   },
   simple(99): { # Embedded Signature container
     1: -19,  # COSE signature algorithm
     4: {  # COSE key descriptor
       1: 1,
       -1: 6,
       -2: h'fe49acf5b92b6e923594f2e83368f680ac924be93cf533aecaf802e37757f8c9'
     },
     # Signature
     6: h'ac70dc7867c91b683c0fdb7a453cf88be031c97822e5143e1366a8fe3b00aa537e0ddd8828c397d98e394c9aa6e2c2484cb75407d993b03fd63be3616eff1c04'
   }
}

The motivations for this arrangement are the same as for RFC 8785, a simplified signature container, and most of all: maintain the structure of the original (unsigned) document.

Anders

Received on Sunday, 1 March 2026 15:45:10 UTC