CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE): Countersignatures
draft-ietf-cose-countersign-10

Approval announcement
Draft of message to be sent after approval:

Announcement

From: The IESG <iesg-secretary@ietf.org>
To: IETF-Announce <ietf-announce@ietf.org>
Cc: The IESG <iesg@ietf.org>, cose-chairs@ietf.org, cose@ietf.org, draft-ietf-cose-countersign@ietf.org, mcr+ietf@sandelman.ca, rdd@cert.org, rfc-editor@rfc-editor.org
Subject: Protocol Action: 'CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE): Countersignatures' to Internet Standard (draft-ietf-cose-countersign-10.txt)

The IESG has approved the following document:
- 'CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE): Countersignatures'
  (draft-ietf-cose-countersign-10.txt) as Internet Standard

This document is the product of the CBOR Object Signing and Encryption
Working Group.

The IESG contact persons are Paul Wouters and Roman Danyliw.

A URL of this Internet Draft is:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-cose-countersign/

Ballot Text

Technical Summary

   Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) is a data format designed
   for small code size and small message size.  CBOR Object Signing and
   Encryption (COSE) defines a set of security services for CBOR.  This
   document defines a countersignature algorithm along with the needed
   header parameters and CBOR tags for COSE.  This document updates RFC
   9052.

Working Group Summary

   The WG thought long and hard about what result they wanted, and ultimately
   the decision to remove countersignatures from RFC8152bis-struct was made
   in a mature and well reasoned fashion.

   Jim Schaad led process, and this documents is among the last that he
   authored.

Document Quality

There is an implementation status in the Internet-draft, and it includes only
an implementation in Java and C# by Jim Schaad.

While CBOR, and COSE, particularly COSE_Sign1 is widely implemented, the use
of counter signatures is a niche solution to unique situations.
OSCORE (RFC8613) is a user of countersignatures in their original,
non-ambiguous formulation.

Personnel

Document Shepherd: Michael Richardson

Responsible Area Director: Roman Danyliw

RFC Editor Note