Why do we need a common message format?
A common format is necessary for end-to-end security
- Signatures require constant bit-format at sender and receiver
- Message conversion is prone to data changes, invalidating signatures
Assures interoperability between various transport protocols
- More likely for security to hold from end-to-end
If a transport protocol uses the canonical message format directly:
- Less confusion for implementers
- Less work for a protocol gateway (no message transformations)
- Fewer convertions between multiple message formats