Re: removing keygen from HTML

On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 3:43 AM, Daniel Appelquist <dan@torgo.com> wrote:

> Hi Folks - the TAG (in the person of Travis) has written on this topic:
>
> https://w3ctag.github.io/client-certificates/#replacing-keygen
>
> As noted, it represents the rough consensus of the TAG on this issue.
>


My point was that the TAG should know that the W3C Web Authentication
Working Group has started, and the W3C Web Authentication AI I believe
fulfils most if not all of these use-cases in a way that improves on
<keygen>, and the plan is to be in browsers by end of the year.

One could argue to keep <keygen> enabled till when Web Authentication API
is in browsers.

Also, as <keygen> is currently non-interoperable and specified in only one
browser and so could be removed on those grounds below from the HTML spec
as per W3C Process. The former would probably cause less complaints from
the WebID+TLS user group that is on this mailing list.




>
> Dan
>
> On Tue, 31 May 2016 at 13:33 Eric Mill <eric@konklone.com> wrote:
>
>> The original email said: "Since the TAG, or its members, appear to have
>> opinions about our spec, we'd be grateful to hear them." It'd be most
>> productive for this thread's discussion to at least be initiated by a
>> member of the TAG.
>>
>> -- Eric
>>
>> On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 8:12 AM, Harry Halpin <hhalpin@ibiblio.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 1:40 AM, Reto Gmür <reto@gmuer.ch> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 31 May 2016, at 10:04, Harry Halpin wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I do not know anyone from the cryptographic or security community that
>>>> would support keeping <keygen>. Indeed, the default response from the
>>>> security/crypto community would be to drop <keygen> due to legacy usage of
>>>> MD5 and violation of security boundaries (SOP).
>>>>
>>>> That would also be my response if I was employed by the NSA and wanted
>>>> to prevent technologies that allow user controlled strong cryptography and
>>>> decentralized networks of trust (as enabled by webId).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Reto,
>>>
>>> That was both an idiotic and offensive statement. Can you explain how
>>> amateur crypto and home-brewed protocols that no-one in the security or
>>> crypto community reviewed or supports is the way to fight the NSA?
>>>
>>> Myself and many others support strong cryptography and decentralized
>>> networks of trust, and fully support that effort. Rather than attribute the
>>> use of broken technology to protocols to NSA, it's also possibly due to
>>> lack of education.
>>>
>>> Thus, you may want to look at:
>>>
>>> 1) MD5 security issues are well-known and documented:
>>> http://merlot.usc.edu/csac-f06/papers/Wang05a.pdf
>>>
>>> 2) In practice, the WebID+TLS community should use modern crypto and the
>>> Web Security model rather than attempt to build on top of an broken,
>>> obscure, and unstandardised browser behaviour. If you want to fight the NSA
>>> by building new protocols on the Web, I recommend taking a class that
>>> explains how Web security works. Videos are available from this MIT course
>>> explain modern Web Security, including the Same Origin Policy:
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1C62Twf0vs
>>>
>>> Hopefully others will be more reasonable, but you may wish to
>>> familiarize yourself with this thread rather than endlessly repeat it.
>>>
>>> https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink-dev/pX5NbX0Xack
>>>
>>> Note that we're just modernizing with W3C Web Authentication secure and
>>> modern cryptographic one-factor authentication to use modern primitives and
>>> respect user privacy. You are more than welcome to join the Working Group
>>> as an Invited Expert, although an expert should be aware of the basics of
>>> security.
>>>
>>> Although there are a number of inaccuracies in this report in terms of
>>> WebCrypto, it's pretty clear Web Authentication matches all requirements in
>>> Section 6 here:
>>> http://w3ctag.github.io/client-certificates/
>>>
>>> Thus, it makes sense to hold off and deprecate <keygen> after the fall
>>> of this year, when Web Authentication is deployed in browsers. As stated
>>> earlier, the "WebID" community can simply use Web Authentication rather
>>> than client certs for authentication.
>>>
>>> That being said, since the only browser that supports <keygen> currently
>>> is Mozilla, who plans to deprecate regardless of what the TAG says, then it
>>> can also be justified to remove from the standard today as there is no
>>> interoperability.
>>>
>>>    cheers,
>>>        harry
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Reto
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> konklone.com | @konklone <https://twitter.com/konklone>
>>
>