Document Shepherd Write-Up for draft-ietf-jose-deprecate-none-rsa15
Document History
1. Does the working group (WG) consensus represent the strong concurrence of a
few individuals, with others being silent, or did it reach broad agreement?
This document received support and no opposition during the working group last
call. The working group last call was extended to obtain additional feedback.
In addition, at IETF 126, a poll of participants resulted in 27 participants
supporting publication, 0 opposing publication, and 8 expressing no opinion.
Given this the shepherd believes there is sufficient working group consensus to
advance the document.
2. Was there controversy about particular points, or were there decisions where
the consensus was particularly rough?
There was discussion regarding how the document should characterize legitimate
historical uses of the JWS “none” algorithm, particularly uses in OpenID
Connect.
Following discussion at IETF 124, the chairs conducted a two-week consensus
call on the mailing list in February 2026 concerning whether and how these uses
should be described. The discussion resulted in compromise text acknowledging
the historical OpenID Connect use cases while retaining the document’s
conclusion that the security benefits of deprecating “none” outweigh the risk
of affecting those uses.
The resulting text was incorporated into the document, and the issue did not
result in any opposition during working group last call.
3. Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme discontent?
If so, please summarize the areas of conflict in separate email messages to the
responsible Area Director.
No. The shepherd is not aware of anyone threatening an appeal or otherwise
expressing extreme discontent regarding this document.
4. For protocol documents, are there existing implementations of the contents
of the document? Have a significant number of potential implementers indicated
plans to implement? Are any existing implementations reported somewhere, either
in the document itself (as RFC 7942 recommends) or elsewhere (where)?
This document does not define a new protocol mechanism requiring
implementation. It changes the recommended status of two existing JOSE
algorithms and provides guidance to JOSE library and application developers. It
also updates the review criteria for future registrations in the JOSE
algorithms registry.
Additional Reviews
5. Do the contents of this document closely interact with technologies in other
IETF working groups or external organizations, and would it therefore benefit
from their review? Have those reviews occurred? If yes, describe which reviews
took place.
The document relates primarily to JOSE. It also discusses RSA PKCS#1 v1.5
security guidance being developed in the IRTF CFRG and cites NIST SP 800-131A.
It discusses historical uses of the “none” algorithm in OpenID Connect.
The relationship to OpenID Connect received specific working group discussion,
including input from participants familiar with OpenID Connect, and resulted in
the explanatory text in Section 2.
No additional formal cross-working-group or external-organization review is
believed necessary prior to IETF Last Call.
6. Describe how the document meets any required formal expert review criteria,
such as the MIB Doctor, YANG Doctor, media type, and URI type reviews.
No such formal expert reviews are required. The document contains no MIB or
YANG modules and does not define media types, URI schemes, or similar
constructs requiring specialized review.
The document does update the review instructions for the Designated Experts for
the IANA “JSON Web Signature and Encryption Algorithms” registry. These changes
were reviewed as part of the JOSE working group’s consideration of the document.
7. If the document contains a YANG module, has the final version of the module
been checked with any of the recommended validation tools for syntax and
formatting validation? If there are any resulting errors or warnings, what is
the justification for not fixing them at this time? Does the YANG module comply
with the Network Management Datastore Architecture (NMDA) as specified in RFC
8342?
Not applicable. The document contains no YANG modules.
8. Describe reviews and automated checks performed to validate sections of the
final version of the document written in a formal language, such as XML code,
BNF rules, MIB definitions, CBOR’s CDDL, etc.
Not applicable. The document contains no such formal-language specifications.
Document Shepherd Checks
9. Based on the shepherd’s review of the document, is it their opinion that
this document is needed, clearly written, complete, correctly designed, and
ready to be handed off to the responsible Area Director?
Yes. The shepherd has reviewed the document and believes that it is needed,
clearly written, complete, and technically appropriate.
The document is ready to be handed to the responsible Area Director. There are
some minor document nits noted below that will be resolved by the author after
the review of the responsible Area Director.
10. Several IETF Areas have assembled lists of common issues that their
reviewers encounter. For which areas have such issues been identified and
addressed? For which does this still need to happen in subsequent reviews?
The document is primarily a Security Area document, and security considerations
are fundamental to its purpose rather than being an ancillary aspect of the
specification. The document provides the security rationale for both algorithm
deprecations and specifies security properties to be considered by Designated
Experts for future algorithm registrations.
No issues from other Area-specific review lists have been identified that
require resolution before progressing the document. Additional review will
occur as part of IETF Last Call and IESG evaluation.
11. What type of RFC publication is being requested on the IETF stream (Best
Current Practice, Proposed Standard, Internet Standard, Informational,
Experimental or Historic)? Why is this the proper type of RFC? Do all
Datatracker state attributes correctly reflect this intent?
Publication as a Proposed Standard on the IETF stream is requested.
This is appropriate because the document updates the Proposed Standars RFC
7518, changes requirements applicable to JOSE implementations and future
specifications, and updates the Designated Expert review criteria associated
with the JOSE algorithm registry.
12. Have reasonable efforts been made to remind all authors of the intellectual
property rights (IPR) disclosure obligations described in BCP 79? To the best
of your knowledge, have all required disclosures been filed? If not, explain
why. If yes, summarize any relevant discussion, including links to
publicly-available messages when applicable.
Yes. The working group last-call announcement explicitly reminded the author
and working group participants of their IPR disclosure obligations under BCP
79. The
To the best of the shepherd’s knowledge, there are no outstanding IPR
disclosure issues associated with this document.
13. Has each author, editor, and contributor shown their willingness to be
listed as such? If the total number of authors and editors on the front page is
greater than five, please provide a justification.
There is only one author, Neil Madden, who has continued to actively maintain
the document through working group review and has therefore demonstrated
willingness to be listed as the author.
14. Document any remaining I-D nits in this document. Simply running the idnits
tool is not enough; please review the “Content Guidelines” on authors.ietf.org.
Minor nits have been identified in the -05 version of the document. The author
will correct these after the AD review when addressing any issues she
identifies.
No other substantive formatting or content-guideline issues were identified in
the shepherd review.
15. Should any informative references be normative or vice-versa? See the IESG
Statement on Normative and Informative References.
The normative/informative reference classification appears appropriate.
RFC 7518 is normative because this document updates its requirements and
registry instructions. RFC 5116 is appropriately normative because the new
Designated Expert criteria rely on the AEAD security property defined there.
RFCs 2119 and 8174 are normative for interpretation of requirements language.
The references to RFC 8017, NIST SP 800-131A, the CFRG RSA guidance document,
OpenID Connect, the cited cryptography textbook, CVE/CVSS material, and other
background material are appropriately informative.
16. List any normative references that are not freely available to anyone. Did
the community have sufficient access to review any such normative references?
None. All normative references are published RFCs and are freely available.
17. Are there any normative downward references (see RFC 3967 and BCP 97) that
are not already listed in the DOWNREF registry? If so, list them.
There are no normative downward references requiring special treatment.
The Datatracker currently identifies RFC 5116 and RFC 7518 as downward
references because the document’s metadata incorrectly indicates an intended
status of Internet Standard. Correcting the intended status to Proposed
Standard resolves this issue.
18. Are there normative references to documents that are not ready to be
submitted to the IESG for publication or are otherwise in an unclear state? If
so, what is the plan for their completion?
No. All normative references are published RFCs.
The reference to the CFRG RSA guidance Internet-Draft is informative and
therefore does not create a normative dependency.
19. Will publication of this document change the status of any existing RFCs?
If so, does the Datatracker metadata correctly reflect this and are those RFCs
listed on the title page, in the abstract, and discussed in the introduction?
If not, explain why and point to the part of the document where the
relationship of this document to these other RFCs is discussed.
The document updates RFC 7518 but does not change RFC 7518’s publication status.
20. Describe the document shepherd’s review of the IANA considerations section,
especially with regard to its consistency with the body of the document.
Confirm that all aspects of the document requiring IANA assignments are
associated with the appropriate reservations in IANA registries. Confirm that
any referenced IANA registries have been clearly identified. Confirm that each
newly created IANA registry specifies its initial contents, allocations
procedures, and a reasonable name.
The shepherd has reviewed the IANA Considerations section and believes it is
consistent with the body of the document.
No new IANA registries are created.
21. List any new IANA registries that require Designated Expert Review for
future allocations. Are the instructions to the Designated Expert clear? Please
include suggestions of designated experts, if appropriate.
No new IANA registries are created. This document updates the instructions for
existing Designated Experts for the “JSON Web Signature and Encryption
Algorithms” registry. These instructions are clear. And, given that this
document updates existing registries, no new designated experts are required.