Issue 312 proposed resolution

[<Frederick.Hirsch@nokia.com>]

Dana

Thank you for the useful feedback provided in issue 312.

To address issue 312 I propose the following changes to the SwA profile
draft 7:

1. Clarify that when an wsse:Security/EncryptedKey element is used to
convey an encryption key, then when that key is used to encrypt an
attachment, the EncryptedKey/ReferenceList element must contain a
reference to the wsse:Security/EncryptedData element corresponding to
the attachment. 

2. Clarify that when the same EncryptedKey corresponds to multiple
EncryptedData elements, then the EncryptedKey/ReferenceList should
contain a reference for each (corresponding to both attachments and
primary soap envelope items). Order of references should correspond to
ordering of security header elements (most recent encryption first in
list). 

3 Clarify that when an EncryptedKey element is not used when encrypting
an attachment, then the EncryptedData element must contain a KeyInfo and
specify a key according to the preferences outlined in core. Different
deployments may have different requirements here so key management
interoperability is out of scope.

4. Add a processing rule that when encrypting both attachments and
primary SOAP envelope content using the same key, perform the attachment
processing first. The reason is that core states that elements should be
prepended to the security header. This way the EncryptedData element
will be put first in the header with EncryptedKey and tokens following
(i.e. receiver should be able to pop EncryptedKey off stack before the
EncryptedData).

I have attached a note outlining encryption of both a SOAP body and
attachment, along these lines.

I suggest that it is ok to have a KeyInfo in an EncryptedData element
even when using the EncryptedKey ReferenceList mechanism, but that a
receiver should be able to rely upon the ReferenceList mechanism (as
reflected in the proposed changes above.)

Does this address issue 312?

I also suggest we clarify in the core specification that if an
EncryptedData element is referenced in a
wsse:Security/EncryptedKey/ReferenceList, then no
wsse:Security/ReferenceList reference is also required for that
encryption.

I also note a typo in the X.509 token profile, x509 should be x509v3 in
the table at line 187. 

Thanks

Regards, Frederick

Frederick Hirsch
Nokia

-----Original Message-----
From: ext Dana Kaufman [mailto:dkaufman@forumsys.com] 
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2004 2:55 PM
To: Hirsch Frederick (Nokia-TP/Boston); wss@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Feedback on SWA Profile-1.0-draft-06

Here is some feedback I got from our engineers on SWA Profile 1.0 Draft
6:

2) There appears to be no consideration for the case where you want to
encrypt both the body and the attachments, which I think is likely to be
the common case.

3) The spec references putting an EncryptedData element in the Security
header, where WSS normally puts an EncryptedKey element with a
ReferenceList.  It is probably ok but you'll have one EncryptedData for
the SOAP Body in the ReferenceList, but the EncryptedData for the
attachment won't be in the ReferenceList.  You'll end up with duplicate
EncryptionKeys, which isn't as pretty as it could be.  You'll have the
EncryptedKey for the body in the Security header.  You'll have the same
EncryptedKey in the EncryptedData in the Security header for the
attachment.

Using the standard WSS approach of ReferenceList would eliminate this
duplication, and also be more consistent with WSS.

Dana S. Kaufman
VP of Product Management
Forum Systems, Inc.
Tel: (781) 788-4232
E-Mail: dkaufman@forumsys.com
Visit http://www.forumsys.com

--- Begin Message ---

• From: <dkaufman@forumsys.com>
• To: <wss@lists.oasis-open.org>
• Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 11:02:01 -0400

Here is some clarification on item 2 & 3.

WSS provides for many ways to point the EncryptedData to the
EncryptedKey: 1) KeyInfo with a KeyName that matches an EncryptedKey
CarriedKeyName 2) KeyInfo with a RetrievalMethod of type EncryptedKey 3)
KeyInfo with a SecurityTokenReference with a Reference URI that
references the EncryptedKey.  The method WSS seems to prefer is to point
the EncryptedKey to the EncryptedData via a ReferenceList.  If every
vendor picks a different approach, we might not have much
interoperability unless all vendors support all approaches.  This is not
so much a SwA issue, except that they have specifically mentioned
ReferenceList in their draft, so I think clarification would be helpful.

Dana S. Kaufman
VP of Product Management
Forum Systems, Inc.
Tel: (781) 788-4232
E-Mail: dkaufman@forumsys.com
Visit http://www.forumsys.com
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Dana Kaufman 
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2004 2:55 PM
To: frederick.hirsch@nokia.com; wss@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [wss] Feedback on SWA Profile-1.0-draft-06

Here is some feedback I got from our engineers on SWA Profile 1.0 Draft
6:

1) The Content-Transfer-Encoding stuff is not clear - Section 3.1.6 item
3

"If the Content-Transfer-Encoding for the attachment has changed from
the value recorded, change the encoding of the type to match the
original encoding. Update the Content-Transfer-Encoding header if MIME
headers were included in the signature calculation."

Not sure if this item should even be in there. How do you know if the
Content-Transfer-Encoding had changed? 

Unless there is some attribute somewhere in the signature that tells you
what the encoding was previously.  There is an encoding attribute for
encryption, but not for signatures

2) There appears to be no consideration for the case where you want to
encrypt both the body and the attachments, which I think is likely to be
the common case.

3) The spec references putting an EncryptedData element in the Security
header, where WSS normally puts an EncryptedKey element with a
ReferenceList.  It is probably ok but you'll have one EncryptedData for
the SOAP Body in the ReferenceList, but the EncryptedData for the
attachment won't be in the ReferenceList.  You'll end up with duplicate
EncryptionKeys, which isn't as pretty as it could be.  You'll have the
EncryptedKey for the body in the Security header.  You'll have the same
EncryptedKey in the EncryptedData in the Security header for the
attachment.

Using the standard WSS approach of ReferenceList would eliminate this
duplication, and also be more consistent with WSS.

Dana S. Kaufman
VP of Product Management
Forum Systems, Inc.
Tel: (781) 788-4232
E-Mail: dkaufman@forumsys.com
Visit http://www.forumsys.com
 



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--- End Message ---

swa-encryption-example.pdf