Fwd: [Moderator Action] WebCrypto API Developers Feedback

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Moderator Action] WebCrypto API Developers Feedback
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 19:48:02 +0000
From: Matthias Dugué <mdugue@clever-age.com>
To: public-webcrypto@w3.org
CC: Nicolas Hoizey <nhoizey@clever-age.com>

Dear WebCrypto WG members,

We are web developers, working in a web agency for various clients and
various projects, from institutional to e-commerce websites.

We looked very closely into the WebCrypto API. Here are some thoughts, from
our point of view:

In our opinion, nowadays, the low-level API requires some skills that the
average developer doesn't have, which makes us think the high-level API is
even more relevant and should be delivered quickly. Admittedly, it is a
low-level API, but this makes it hard to use for a broad spectrum of web
developers, mostly because of its permissive nature with many security
choices, namely algorithms. A lot of us don't understand the implications
of these choices, and think the learning curve is too steep.

While recommending a set of algorithms to implement, the low-level API does
not guarantee a consistent implementation across browsers, which may
generate reluctance in adoption. We fear that some browser editors will
refuse to implement some algorithms due to their policies or technical
difficulty, which will create a fragmented support, like the one we see
today with the <video> codecs.

Considering the key support and access, the fact that low-level API allows
to retrieve a key which is not present in the browser environment (and thus
create an error) will be confusing. We believe it would be preferable not
to present a key whose material is not available, rather than offering to
use it but throw an error when trying to access it. This reminds us of the
<video> support and its canPlayType() method
(<http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/the-video-element.html#dom-navigator-canplaytype>
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/the-video-element.html#dom-navigator-canplaytype),
that can return *probably* if the media is playable, which is better than *
maybe* but worse than *yes*… Please, we need strong support when we need to
deal with APIs, not *probably* support! (-*is the key available ?* -*
probably*…)

Finally, the use case for certificate management is missing (as a simple
and attractive means to implement the user/application authentication).
We're very impatient to see the outcome of your efforts to bring us a
robust API to build crypto methods. But, as web applications developers,
our first emergency is a simple to use and robust API, to deal with
certificates/authentication, in order to prevent the security hole that is
currently the login/password couple.

Thanks a lot for your work and your interest in reading this email, we'll
be closely following your drafts!


Matthias Dugué (@madsgraphics)

Nicolas Hoizey (@nhoizey)

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Matthias DUGUÉ - http://www.clever-age.com/
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Received on Friday, 29 March 2013 18:38:06 UTC