I’m trying to understand why the x5u header must be a COSE protected header 
parameter and in general what the expected use of this header is.

My understanding is that it the relying party that is validating the cert chain 
is the one doing the HTTP fetching.

In the case of application/pkix-cert, then only one DER cert is returned and 
that is the end-entity cert.

My expectation for the way this would work is:
   - The relying party would use HTTP to with the x5u URL to fetch the 
end-entity cert
   - The relying party would have a trust anchor previously configured
   - The certs in the chain between the end-entity are either already possess 
by the relying party or are in the x5bag header
   - Then it is just a straight forward chain formation and validation. 

In this use, there is no requirement for security of the URL or for use of TLS 
to fetch it. All the necessary security is provided by standard chain 
validation.

So why is there a requirement that the header be protected and that TLS/DTLS be 
used?

Further, wouldn't the header protection be a form of self signing since the 
private key used to sign the header corresponds to the public key that is being 
fetched?

But maybe I am grossly misunderstanding the intended use of x5u?

Thanks,

LL

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