Last Call Review of draft-ietf-jose-jws-signing-input-options-06
review-ietf-jose-jws-signing-input-options-06-secdir-lc-kaduk-2015-12-17-00

Hi all,

I have reviewed this document as part of the security directorate's
ongoing effort to review all IETF documents being processed by the
IESG.  These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the
security area directors.  Document editors and WG chairs should treat
these comments just like any other last call comments.

This document is Ready.

The main JWS spec (RFC 7515) required that the signed payload was
base64url-encoded prior to signing.  This results in a noticeable size
expansion; in some circumstances it is desirable to avoid this expansion
and reencoding.  I did not follow the JWS document closely at the time,
but I believe this issue was raised at the time and consensus reached on
the published version because it is always safe for applications to use.
This document provides an opt-in mechanism for application (protocol)s to
avoid the extra encoding and expansion, leaving the burden on the
application to determine whether it is safe to do so and perform the
relevant input checking/sanitization.  The security considerations
correctly describe the implications of the loss of encoding and the
restrictions on the signed content when detached payloads are not used,
interoperability concerns for applications not supporting the b64 header
parameter, and proposes appropriate countermeasures.

Interestingly, this document does not need to update the JWS spec, since
it is just adding to an IANA registry and not modifying the core spec, but
it does update the JWT spec (RFC 7519) to prohibit the use of b64=false in
JWTs.  No justification is made for this restriction in the text of the
document, but it seems reasonable to "play it safe" in this sense, to me.



I do have a few nits unrelated to the security review:

The abstract mentions the "Updates: 7519", but the introduction does not;
I am sometimes told that both locations should mention the update, but I
assume that the RFC Editor will notice if anything needs to change.

It is a bit amusing that the example with payload "$.02" is actually
longer with the unencoded payload, due to the overhead of the header
field, but I do not suggest modifying the example at this time.

Section 5.3 makes reference to Section 8.3 of RFC 7159 for JSON
string-escape processing, but I think perhaps section 7 of that RFC would
be a better reference.

Relatedly, I needed to reread the text in Section 5.3 a few times in order
to convince myself that I correctly understood the procedure for
generating the payload to be signed, but I believe that all the steps
given are necessary and correct, and do not have proposed text that would
be better.  String-escape processing is just inherently fiddly.

I did not attempt to verify the examples' encoding and consistency.



Thanks for this well-written document.

-Ben