On second thought: It seems like the signature should actually be over the
UTF-8 octets, rather than the base64 octets.  To reason by analogy: For
every other field in a JWE, you decode the field before using it in a
cryptographic computation.  So it should be the same with the protected
header.

--Richard


On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 12:28 PM, Richard Barnes <[email protected]> wrote:

> This sounds like a fine idea to me.  It saves space and makes the JSON
> format more human-readable.  It actually makes kind of a nice analogy to
> ASN.1, namely use of OCTET STRING to encapsulate more DER content.
>
> The compact serialization can continue to base64url-encode that field, so
> it would not be a breaking change for that serialization.
>
> --Richard
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 1:46 AM, Jim Schaad <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>> <no hat>****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> I am trying to figure out if I am missing something.  This is not yet a
>> formal proposal to actual change the document.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> I was thinking about proposing that we make a change to the content of
>> the protected field in the JWS JSON serialization format.  If we encoded
>> this as a UTF8 string rather than the base64url encoded UTF8 string, then
>> the content would be smaller.  The computation of the signature would be
>> unchanged in that it would still be computed over the base64url encoded
>> string.  I believe that the conversion from the UTF8 string to the
>> base64url encoded UTF8 string is a deterministic encoding and thus would
>> not generate any problems from that point.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> At this point I and trying to figure out if I missed anything that would
>> preclude this from working.  I am not worried about how hard or easy it
>> would be to do, just if it is even possible.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Jim****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> jose mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/jose
>>
>>
>
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