Subject: [jose] Cryptographic Algorithms Registry

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:27:06 -0500

One of the issues that was raised was the need for yet another crypto algs
registry.

We had a side discussion on this in chat. It seems to me that there is at
the very least support for the positions that :

1) The current state of crypto algorithm registries is a mess.
2) We should have consistency at an IETF wide level.

In parallel there is a discussion in the EFF observatory mailing list on
the problem of 512 bit certificates. I believe that the core problem there
was that everyone involved was assuming that we all knew what the right
thing to do was and that someone else would take care of it.

There are two potential candidates for someone to take charge of this.
Ideally the IETF will do it. Otherwise CABForum will end up having to do
it. Which is problematic as their official remit does not extend to IPSEC
or S/MIME or many of the other protocols CAs support, let alone non-PKIX
ones.

So my proposal for Jose is that this is something that the WG pushes back
to the Security Area as a whole.

For the sake of getting the WG completed, Jose should proceed on an
independent track and act as if it is going to use a separate registry just
like the 16 or so other IETF protocols have done before.

The only impact this proposal would have on Jose is that the Jose WG would
not have to spend time justifying the absurdity of yet another separate
registry and would not have to spend too much time thinking about the
maintenance issues.

I will post the actual concrete proposal to the SAAG list later on today.

[Yes, the same issue comes up in DECADE with the ni proposal]
-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/