Return-Path: Delivered-To: apmail-couchdb-user-archive@www.apache.org Received: (qmail 69083 invoked from network); 9 Mar 2009 00:33:33 -0000 Received: from hermes.apache.org (HELO mail.apache.org) (140.211.11.2) by minotaur.apache.org with SMTP; 9 Mar 2009 00:33:33 -0000 Received: (qmail 5698 invoked by uid 500); 9 Mar 2009 00:33:30 -0000 Delivered-To: apmail-couchdb-user-archive@couchdb.apache.org Received: (qmail 5656 invoked by uid 500); 9 Mar 2009 00:33:30 -0000 Mailing-List: contact user-help@couchdb.apache.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Post: List-Id: Reply-To: user@couchdb.apache.org Delivered-To: mailing list user@couchdb.apache.org Received: (qmail 5645 invoked by uid 99); 9 Mar 2009 00:33:30 -0000 Received: from nike.apache.org (HELO nike.apache.org) (192.87.106.230) by apache.org (qpsmtpd/0.29) with ESMTP; Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:33:30 -0700 X-ASF-Spam-Status: No, hits=-0.0 required=10.0 tests=SPF_PASS X-Spam-Check-By: apache.org Received-SPF: pass (nike.apache.org: local policy) Received: from [80.68.94.123] (HELO tumbolia.org) (80.68.94.123) by apache.org (qpsmtpd/0.29) with ESMTP; Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:33:21 +0000 Received: from nslater by tumbolia.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1LgTQT-0000L5-5q for user@couchdb.apache.org; Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:33:01 +0000 Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 00:33:01 +0000 From: Noah Slater To: user@couchdb.apache.org Subject: Re: Proposal for digital signatures of documents Message-ID: <20090309003301.GE361@tumbolia.org> Mail-Followup-To: user@couchdb.apache.org References: <283A6EDD-6701-4A6A-88AE-8B97E6D11D9E@mooseyard.com> <20090309002113.GD361@tumbolia.org> <55679AE8-0200-40B9-AC7D-0249E4FECC3B@gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <55679AE8-0200-40B9-AC7D-0249E4FECC3B@gmail.com> X-Noah: Awesome User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) X-Virus-Checked: Checked by ClamAV on apache.org On Mon, Mar 09, 2009 at 10:58:02AM +1030, Antony Blakey wrote: > > On 09/03/2009, at 10:51 AM, Noah Slater wrote: > >> What does canonicalisation have to do with crypto signing procedures? > > From Jen's proposal: > >> Moreover, the same JSON object can be represented by different >> sequences of bytes, since key/value pairs may be rearranged, >> whitespace added or removed, and different encodings used. It's >> possible for the byte representation to change in transit, if the >> document is parsed into a data structure and then re-serialized. This >> would prevent the recipient from being able to verify the signature. So >> the signature has to be generated from a canonical representationof the >> JSON, which we can define as: Oh right, I'm not sure I see the immediate use case for this then. Canonicalisation is a tough nut to crack, I would avoid it if possible. Where's the harm in singing specific serialisations? -- Noah Slater, http://tumbolia.org/nslater