Utilizing XML-Encryption for Attribute Values

• From: Jeff Rafter <lists@jeffrafter.com>
• Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 11:00:17 -0700
• To: xml-encryption@w3.org
• Message-ID: <42F3A931.1060308@jeffrafter.com>

I was wondering if anyone could point me to a discussion on why 
XML-Encryption was not enabled for attribute values? It seems that the 
nature of the addressing mechanism should be easily pluggable using the 
DataReference-- or that an alternate mechanism to treat an attribute 
value's content as CipherData would be workable.

I assume that the reasoning for not pursuing this was the difficulty in 
processing and not a security risk-- but admit to not knowing. I am 
currently in an environment where there is a desire to encrypt 
individual attribute values within an element. Having the key 
information and EncryptedData elements in another section of the 
document is a very attractive solution...

Any discussion or links on this would be greatly appreciated as I 
haven't been able to pin down any as yet.

Thanks,
Jeff Rafter

Received on Friday, 5 August 2005 18:00:23 UTC