Fwd: Re: WebCrypto edits on key material (Option 2)

Here's a message from Tim Taubert from Mozilla. I've asked him to join
the WG, as it seems Mozilla bugs are being currently looked at by him.

  cheers,
       harry



-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject:  Re: WebCrypto edits on key material (Option 2)
Date:  Mon, 18 Jan 2016 20:53:48 +0100
From:  Tim Taubert <ttaubert@mozilla.com>
To:  Harry Halpin <hhalpin@w3.org>
CC:  Ryan Sleevi <sleevi@google.com>, GALINDO Virginie
<Virginie.Galindo@gemalto.com>, public-webcrypto@w3.org
<public-webcrypto@w3.org>



Harry Halpin wrote:
> 
> 
> On 01/18/2016 01:28 PM, Ryan Sleevi wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 2:01 AM, GALINDO Virginie
>> <Virginie.Galindo@gemalto.com <mailto:Virginie.Galindo@gemalto.com>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>     Ryan,
>>
>>     When you say “we don’t have interoperable implementations”.
>>
>>     Does this apply still if we remove the key material format as
>>     offered by option 2, as announced [1]?
>>
>>     Regards,
>>
>>     Virginie
>>
>>     [1]
>>     https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webcrypto/2015Dec/0031.html
>>
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>> I thought this was clear to the chairs and staff contacts, but we
>> really, really don't have interoperability, and the discussion of key
>> formats shows a lack of interest by other UAs to work towards a solution.
>>
>> Here's two examples just because I've run into them in the past few weeks:
>> - Firefox doesn't support WorkerCrypto (and it's unclear whether
>> Safari does either)
>> - Firefox accepts keys that Safari/Chrome reject (non-minimal encodings)
>>
>> Both of these issues caused interop issues when people working on code
>> for Chrome, and ended up surfacing as Chrome issues. And while it
>> sounds like I'm picking on Firefox, it's been clear that Safari
>> doesn't support a number of the algorithm's spec'd and, given that
>> it's been two years since those files were last touched, is unclear
>> whether they will.
>>
>> We also know that the W3C's recommended path (which I would suggest
>> doesn't really have browser support so much as no comments by
>> browsers, a very important distinction) will cause real
>> interoperability with sites, and so browsers are unlikely to take the
>> spec-recommended path. At best, we're fragmenting the spec in order to
>> satisfy an arbitrary timeline, which itself is being missed because
>> user agents are non-responsive towards implementation.
>>
>> And this is setting aside that there are undoubtedly a host of hidden
>> interoperability issues that have yet to be discovered, simply because
>> we lack any form of consistent testing (where consistent I mean with
>> respect to the spec's claims). As such, it's unclear whether the spec
>> is overly specific or overly general, nor what the correct course of
>> action is. Heck, there was still ambiguity with respect to how error
>> messages are propogated to developers.
>>
>> I want to see forward progress on this spec, but I don't think forward
>> progress is measured by publication timelines. If other user agents
>> have lost an interest to work on this spec, then hopefully they'll
>> make it clear. Otherwise, what we have in the spec isn't reflective of
>> reality, and we should just try to spec the few bits of
>> interoperability we already have and shut down the WG, since it's
>> clear no further forward progress will be made. But that's not just
>> "removing key formats" from the spec, that's a vastly different thing
>> entirely.
> 
> However, note that we can't simply have the spec sit around forever in
> an un-finished state while we wait for UA implementers to regain
> interest. We owe it to developers who read the spec to have the spec
> reflect the underlying reality of implementation. If there's features
> where we don't have interop, the path forward is to remove those
> features, not wait indefinitely.
> 
> From your comments, it seems the other part of the spec that should be
> removed is WorkerCrypto. Is that correct?

Please note that we (Mozilla) are working on getting WebCrypto supported
in Workers. It's mostly not a huge amount of work by itself but we need
a few platform changes/workarounds to access our crypto library off the
main thread. We weren't able to prioritize that in the last quarter but
I hope that I can devote some time to it in the weeks or months to come.

BTW, we will most likely be able to enable RSA-PSS in WebCrypto for
Firefox 46, i.e. the current Nightly version.

- Tim


> Again, if the interop issue are PKCS/SPKI key formats and WorkerCrypto,
> then we simply *remove* them from the spec and put interop on them into
> a new 'maintenance mode' charter.
> 
> In terms of Safari, Safari has not removed their vendor prefix and so is
> not included in *any* interop discussions yet. Hopefully they'll catch up.
> 
> We will not be able to ask for a new charter without going through this
> step of pruning non-interoperable features from the spec. We've been
> asking poitely for interest from browser vendors to help with interop
> and fixing this for the last few months, but given the lack of a
> response the way forward is simply to remove non-interopable features
> from the spec. We can always return to the spec if interest re-ignites.
> Again, a 'maintenance mode' will allow us to update the spec as
> implementations move.
> 
>          cheers,
>               harry
>