JSON Web Signature JSON Serialization (JWS-JS)Microsoftmbj@microsoft.comhttp://self-issued.info/independentve7jtb@ve7jtb.comNomura Research Instituten-sakimura@nri.co.jp
Security
JOSE Working GroupRFCRequest for CommentsI-DInternet-DraftJavaScript Object NotationJSONJSON Web TokenJWTJSON Web SignatureJWSJSON Web EncryptionJWEJSON Web KeyJWKJSON Web AlgorithmsJWA
The JSON Web Signature JSON Serialization (JWS-JS) is a means of
representing content secured with digital signatures or
Message Authentication Codes (MACs)
using JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) data structures.
This specification describes a means of representing
secured content as a JSON data object
(as opposed to the JWS specification, which uses a
compact serialization with a URL-safe representation).
It enables multiple digital signatures and/or MACs to
be applied to the same content (unlike JWS).
Cryptographic algorithms and identifiers used with this
specification are described in the separate
JSON Web Algorithms (JWA) specification.
The JSON Serialization for
related encryption functionality is described in the separate
JSON Web Encryption JSON Serialization (JWE-JS) specification.
The JSON Web Signature JSON Serialization (JWS-JS) is a format for
representing content secured with digital signatures or
Message Authentication Codes (MACs) as a
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) object.
It enables multiple digital signatures and/or MACs to
be applied to the same content (unlike JWS ).
The digital signature and MAC mechanisms used are independent of
the type of content being secured, allowing arbitrary content
to be secured.
Cryptographic algorithms and identifiers used with this
specification are described in the separate
JSON Web Algorithms (JWA) specification.
The JSON Serialization for
related encryption functionality is described in the separate
JSON Web Encryption JSON Serialization (JWE-JS)
specification.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL",
"SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY",
and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as
described in
Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels .
This specification uses the same terminology as the
JSON Web Signature (JWS)
specification.
The JSON Serialization represents secured content as a JSON object with
a recipients member
containing an array of per-recipient information
and a payload member
containing a shared Encoded JWS Payload value.
Each member of the recipients array is a JSON object with
a header member
containing an Encoded JWS Header value
and a signature member
containing an Encoded JWS Signature value.
Unlike the compact serialization used by JWSs, content using
the JSON Serialization MAY be secured with more than one
digital signature and/or MAC value. Each is represented as
an Encoded JWS Signature value in the signature member
of an object in the recipients array.
For each, there is an Encoded JWS Encoded Header value in the
header member
of the same object in the recipients array.
This specifies the
digital signature or MAC applied to the Encoded JWS Header
value and the shared Encoded JWS Payload value to create the JWS
Signature value. Therefore, the syntax is:
",
"signature":""},
...
{"header":"",
"signature":""}],
"payload":""
}
]]>
The contents of the Encoded JWS Header, Encoded JWS Payload,
and Encoded JWS Signature values are exactly as specified in
JSON Web Signature (JWS) . They are
interpreted and validated in the same manner, with each
corresponding header and signature value being created
and validated together.
Each JWS Signature value is computed on the JWS Secured
Input corresponding to the concatenation of the Encoded
JWS Header, a period ('.') character, and the Encoded JWS
Payload in the same manner described in the JWS specification.
This has the desirable result that each Encoded JWS signature
value in the recipients array is
identical to the value that would be used for the same
parameters in a JWS.
This section contains an example using the JWS JSON
Serialization. This example demonstrates the capability for
conveying multiple digital signatures and/or MACs for the
same payload.
The Encoded JWS Payload used in this example is the same as
used in the examples in Appendix A of JWS
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
Two digital signatures are used in this example: an RSA SHA-256
signature, for which the header and signature values are
the same as in Appendix A.2 of JWS, and an
ECDSA P-256 SHA-256 signature, for which the header and
signature values are the same as in Appendix A.3 of JWS.
The two Decoded JWS Header Segments used are:
and:
Since the computations of the JWS Header and JWS Signature
values are the same as in Appendix A.2 and Appendix A.3 of
JWS, they are not repeated here.
The complete JSON Web Signature JSON Serialization (JWS-JS)
for these values is as follows
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
This specification makes no requests of IANA.
The security considerations for this specification are the
same as those for the JSON Web Signature (JWS) specification.
JSON Web Signature (JWS)Microsoftmbj@microsoft.comhttp://self-issued.info/independentve7jtb@ve7jtb.comNomura Research Instituten-sakimura@nri.co.jpJSON Web Algorithms (JWA)Microsoftmbj@microsoft.comhttp://self-issued.info/JSON Web Encryption JSON Serialization (JWE-JS)Microsoftmbj@microsoft.comhttp://self-issued.info/Magic SignaturesJSON Simple SignindependentNomura Research Institute
JSON serializations for secured content were previously explored by
Magic Signatures and JSON Simple Sign.
[[ to be removed by the RFC editor before publication as an RFC ]]
The following items remain to be considered or done in this draft:
Track changes that occur in the JWS spec.
[[ to be removed by the RFC editor before publication as an RFC ]]
-03
Updated references.
-02
Changed to use an array of structures for per-recipient values,
rather than a set of parallel arrays.
-01
Generalized language to refer to Message Authentication Codes (MACs)
rather than Hash-based Message Authentication Codes (HMACs).
-00
Renamed draft-jones-json-web-signature-json-serialization
to draft-jones-jose-jws-json-serialization to have "jose"
be in the document name so it can be included in the
Related Documents list at http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/jose/.
No normative changes.
draft-jones-json-web-signature-json-serialization-02
Tracked editorial changes made to the JWS spec.
draft-jones-json-web-signature-json-serialization-01
Corrected the Magic Signatures reference.
draft-jones-json-web-signature-json-serialization-00
Created the initial version incorporating JOSE working
group input and drawing from the JSON Serialization
previously proposed in draft-jones-json-web-token-01.