RE: Minutes from Today's Call Please Review/Correct

At 13:31 99/08/24 -0400, Phillip M Hallam-Baker wrote:
 >I am opposed to introducing the possibility of a downgrade or
 >algorithm substitution attack.

Good point, it might be worthwhile to have a security requirements section
and include this principle. Regardless, does this requirement necessarily
conflict with a mandatory to implement but optional to use c14n? .... Again,
if a signer is not confident the receiver is willing to use/trust a feature,
he is much less likely to use it. However, this evaluation will be made on
the basis of the trust of the feature's specification/implementation, not
whether the feature will be implemented at all. Pursuing the former leads to
use of the feature at a level commensurate with its quality (including
abandonment if there's a hole); pursuing the latter converges to non-use
given the network effects of interoperability. The former satisfies those
who need c14n and are willing to risk it as well as those who refuse to use
it. The latter only serves those who refuse to use it.



_________________________________________________________
Joseph Reagle Jr.   
Policy Analyst           mailto:reagle@w3.org
XML-Signature Co-Chair   http://w3.org/People/Reagle/

Received on Tuesday, 24 August 1999 17:00:35 UTC