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Re: Partyin' like it's 1999

• To: Elliotte Harold <elharo@m...>
• Subject: Re: Partyin' like it's 1999
• From: Sean McGrath <sean.mcgrath@p...>
• Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:17:25 +0100
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <417FA999.4070608@m...>
• Organization: Propylon
• References: <417F8F4A.3000407@p...> <417F9905.3080400@m...> <417F9BAD.5060503@p...> <417FA999.4070608@m...>
• Reply-to: sean.mcgrath@p...
• User-agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.6 (Windows/20040502)

Elliotte Harold wrote:

> Sean McGrath wrote:
>
>
>> The use case here is transmitting XML-based messages from one service 
>> to another service on a Service Oriented Architecture and doing it in 
>> such a way that (a) it is possible to be sure that a message routed 
>> "straight through" has not been tampered with and yet (b) the XML is 
>> fully visibile - not a lump of attatchment goo - for the purposes of 
>> intelligent routing.
>
>
> This sounds like exactly what XML digital signatures is supposed to do.

Yes - specifically the canonicalisation bit.

> If that doesn't work, then treat the document as read-only data, and 
> wrap it in a MIME envelope (a.k.a XOP) along with a digital signature 
> over the binary form of the data.

That is precisely what I'm trying to avoid. I think it is silly that we 
end up using binary attachments in order to work around the fact that we 
cannot sanely process XML losslessly.

>
>
>> Equally important is the fact that an intermediating service can 
>> add/modify/delete content from the XML instance without doing damage 
>> to the untouched parts of the instance.
>
>
> I'm not sure I see how this is compatible with the need to route 
> straight through without tampering.

Both "straight thru" and "intervened" are use cases in the SOA 
architecture I'm advocating. An introductory paper is available at:
http://sdec.reach.ie/papers if you are interested. Comments welcome.

> But again, this is a use case XML digital signatures attempts to 
> address. Why is that not working for you?
>
If you look at the RIG 2 document you will see that the requirements of 
RCF compliance are expressed in terms of constrains over and above W3C 
XML canonicalisation. In particular, I want to avoid the complexities 
that result from combining  XML 1.0  canonicalisation with namespaces 
(e.g. Exclusive XML canonicalization :-)

Any document that is RCF compliant is also XML canonicalisation 
compliant but not the other way around.

regards,
Sean



-- 
http://seanmcgrath.blogspot.com

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Partyin' like it's 1999
    • From: Rich Salz <rsalz@d...>

• References:
  • Re: Partyin' like it's 1999
    • From: Sean McGrath <sean.mcgrath@p...>
  • Re: Partyin' like it's 1999
    • From: Elliotte Harold <elharo@m...>
  • Re: Partyin' like it's 1999
    • From: Sean McGrath <sean.mcgrath@p...>
  • Re: Partyin' like it's 1999
    • From: Elliotte Harold <elharo@m...>

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