Use Cases and Requirements for JSON Object Signing and Encryption (JOSE)
RFC 7165

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                         R. Barnes
Request for Comments: 7165                                       Mozilla
Category: Informational                                       April 2014
ISSN: 2070-1721

                     Use Cases and Requirements for
               JSON Object Signing and Encryption (JOSE)

Abstract

   Many Internet applications have a need for object-based security
   mechanisms in addition to security mechanisms at the network layer or
   transport layer.  For many years, the Cryptographic Message Syntax
   (CMS) has provided a binary secure object format based on ASN.1.
   Over time, binary object encodings such as ASN.1 have become less
   common than text-based encodings, such as the JavaScript Object
   Notation (JSON).  This document defines a set of use cases and
   requirements for a secure object format encoded using JSON, drawn
   from a variety of application security mechanisms currently in
   development.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7165.

Barnes                        Informational                     [Page 1]
RFC 7165                     JOSE Use Cases                   April 2014

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
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   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Basic Requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   4.  Requirements on Application Protocols . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   5.  Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.1.  Security Tokens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.2.  OAuth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.3.  OpenID Connect  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     5.4.  XMPP  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     5.5.  ALTO  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     5.6.  Emergency Alerting  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     5.7.  Web Cryptography  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     5.8.  Constrained Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
       5.8.1.  Example: MAC Based on ECDH-Derived Key  . . . . . . .  16
       5.8.2.  Object Security for CoAP  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   6.  Requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     6.1.  Functional Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     6.2.  Security Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
     6.3.  Desiderata  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
   8.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
     8.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
     8.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   Appendix A.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25

Barnes                        Informational                     [Page 2]
RFC 7165                     JOSE Use Cases                   April 2014

1.  Introduction

   Internet applications rest on the layered architecture of the
   Internet and take advantage of security mechanisms at all layers.
   Many applications rely primarily on channel-based security
   technologies such as IPsec and Transport Layer Security (TLS), which
   create a secure channel at the IP layer or transport layer over which
   application data can flow [RFC4301] [RFC5246].  These mechanisms,
   however, cannot provide end-to-end security in some cases.  For
   example, in protocols with application-layer intermediaries, channel-