<AgreementMethod> questions

Hello All,

I have been pondering the <AgreementMethod> element today and have a very
basic question. I am hoping that someone can set me straight on this.

It seems to me that the <AgreementMethod> has a sort of "chicken and egg"
problem. For example, if I am an originator and I am performing a DH key
exchange with a recipient, it is impossible for me to send the key exchange
information along with encrypted data because the encryption key hasn't yet
been generated. This means that the example in Section 5.5 assumes that a
key has *already* been generated and the <ds:KeyInfo> should point to (or
remind someone of) a previously generated key agreement. But there is a
contradiction (in my mind) because the XML Encryption draft specifies it's
own key derivation function, yet there is no pair of messages for just
performing the key exchange and generating the key. The <ds:KeyInfo> is
defined to be a part of <EncryptedData>.

It appears as if there is a contradiction of sorts in the draft (or some
horrendous misunderstanding on my part). I can live with the fact that the
<AgreementMethod> element is used as a "reminder" to let recipients and
originators know which key was generated (and with a nonce, if possible),
but it doesn't look like XML Encryption actually specifies the logistics to
perform the key agreement without also specifying actual encrypted data,
which is impossible because the shared key hasn't been generated.

Thanks,

Blake Dournaee
Toolkit Applications Engineer
RSA Security
 
"The only thing I know is that I know nothing" - Socrates

Received on Tuesday, 13 November 2001 20:16:10 UTC