Category: IETF Page 1 of 8

Design Team Decisions Applied to JOSE HPKE Specification

On November 30, 2025

In Cryptography, IETF, JSON, Specifications

A design team formed and met after the JOSE working group meeting at IETF 124 in Montreal to discuss possible next steps for the JOSE HPKE specification. As recorded in the PR applying the decisions made, the design team produced these recommendations:

Not use "enc" when performing Integrated Encryption.
Define one new Key Management Mode for Integrated Encryption.
Integrate the new mode into the Message Encryption and Message Decryption instructions from RFC 7516 and replace them.
Utilize distinct algorithm identifiers for the use of HPKE for Integrated Encryption and HPKE for Key Encryption.
Only use the Recipient_structure when doing Key Encryption and not when doing Integrated Encryption.

Draft 15 has now been published, which incorporates these decisions. Note that the title of the specification has been changed to “Use of Hybrid Public Key Encryption (HPKE) with JSON Web Encryption (JWE)” to more precisely describe what it does.

Those attending the design team were Karen O’Donoghue, John Bradley, Hannes Tschofenig, Filip Skokan, Brian Campbell, Leif Johansson, Paul Bastian, and myself – with it all being kicked off by Deb Cooley.

Special thanks to Filip Skokan for creating the examples used in the specification.

Brian and I celebrated our deliberations together with a mostly failed attempt at ping pong, the design team meeting having been held in the Ping Pong room.

Ping Pong between Brian Campbell and Mike Jones

I believe the next steps are to apply the same decisions to the COSE HPKE specification and then hold another set of concurrent working group last calls (WGLCs) for both specifications.

Fully-Specified Algorithms for JOSE and COSE is now RFC 9864

On October 30, 2025

In CBOR, Cryptography, IETF, JSON, Specifications

The “Fully-Specified Algorithms for JSON Object Signing and Encryption (JOSE) and CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE)” specification has been published as RFC 9864! I believe that this is the first RFC I’ve worked on that started its journey as a presentation of an idea to the working group without an accompanying draft. The idea was well received by the JOSE Working Group at IETF 117 in July 2023 and so Orie Steele and I took the next step of writing a draft. The work was done in close coordination with the COSE Working Group.

The abstract from the RFC describes its contributions as follows:

This specification refers to cryptographic algorithm identifiers that fully specify the cryptographic operations to be performed, including any curve, key derivation function (KDF), and hash functions, as being “fully specified”. It refers to cryptographic algorithm identifiers that require additional information beyond the algorithm identifier to determine the cryptographic operations to be performed as being “polymorphic”. This specification creates fully-specified algorithm identifiers for registered JSON Object Signing and Encryption (JOSE) and CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE) polymorphic algorithm identifiers, enabling applications to use only fully-specified algorithm identifiers. It deprecates those polymorphic algorithm identifiers.

This specification updates RFCs 7518, 8037, and 9053. It deprecates polymorphic algorithms defined by RFCs 8037 and 9053 and provides fully-specified replacements for them. It adds to the instructions to designated experts in RFCs 7518 and 9053.

This is one that the world has been wanting and waiting for! There are already normative references to it both from IETF specs and also W3C, FIDO Alliance, and OpenID Foundation specifications.

I’m particularly proud of this one because it not only fixes the real and present problem of polymorphic algorithm identifiers that has plagued implementations and systems; it also ensures that the problem cannot recur, by mandating that only fully-specified algorithm identifiers can henceforth be registered. In my view, this one makes the world better.

Updates to Audience Values for OAuth 2.0 Authorization Servers

On July 22, 2025

In IETF, JSON, OAuth, OpenID, Security, Specifications

OAuth logo A new version of the Updates to Audience Values for OAuth 2.0 Authorization Servers specification has been published that incorporates feedback from the OAuth working group during IETF 122. I look forward to a vigorous and useful discussion of the specification at IETF 123 in Madrid.

This specification updates a set of existing OAuth specifications to address a security vulnerability identified during formal analysis of a previous version of the OpenID Federation specification. The vulnerability resulted from ambiguities in the treatment of the audience values of tokens intended for the authorization server. The updates to these specifications close that vulnerability in the affected OAuth specifications – especially JWT client authentication in RFC 7523. In parallel, the OpenID Foundation has also updated affected OpenID specifications, including OpenID Federation and FAPI 2.0.

As summarized in the history entries, the changes in this draft were:

Focused RFC 7523 updates on JWT client authentication case.
Described client responsibilities for the audience value of authorization grants. No longer mandate that the audience for authorization grants be the issuer identifier, so as to make a minimum of breaking changes.
Deprecated the use of SAML assertions for client authentication.

Finally, Filip Skokan was added as an author, in recognition of his significant contributions to the work. Thanks to Filip and Brian Campbell for their work with me on this specification.

JOSE and COSE HPKE specifications updated in preparation for IETF 123

On July 9, 2025

In CBOR, Cryptography, IETF, JSON, Specifications

The working group last calls for the JOSE and COSE Hybrid Public Key Encryption (HPKE) specifications resulted in actionable feedback on both specs. Both were updated to incorporate the feedback when the actions to take were clear. That said, I expect substantive discussions to occur on the few remaining issues for both specifications at IETF 123 in Madrid.

The current versions are:

The specifications entering WGLC together were:

Thanks to the work that Orie Steele, Hannes Tschofenig, and Tirumal Reddy put in over the past weeks to get us ready for IETF 123!

“Split Signing Algorithms for COSE” and “ARKG” updated in preparation for IETF 123

On July 9, 2025

In CBOR, Cryptography, IETF, Specifications

Emil Lundberg and I have published the Split Signing Algorithms for COSE specification. This is an update to the spec formerly called COSE Algorithms for Two-Party Signing. The new draft incorporates feedback received during IETF 122, preparing for discussions at IETF 123 in Madrid.

As recorded in the History entries, the changes made were:

Renamed document from “COSE Algorithms for Two-Party Signing” to “Split signing algorithms for COSE” and updated introduction and terminology accordingly.
Dropped definitions for HashML-DSA, as split variants of ML-DSA are being actively discussed in other IETF groups.
Changed “Base algorithm” heading in definition tables to “Verification algorithm”.
Remodeled COSE_Key_Ref as COSE_Sign_Args.
Dropped definitions of reference types for COSE Key Types registry.

Emil also published an update to the Asynchronous Remote Key Generation (ARKG) specification, with some assistance from me. See the History entries there for details of the updates made. Some of the changes made were for alignment with the Split Signing Algorithms specification.

Major updates to JSON Web Proof specifications in preparation for IETF 123

On July 9, 2025

In CBOR, Claims, Cryptography, IETF, JSON, Privacy, Specifications

David Waite and I made significant updates to the JSON Web Proof, JSON Proof Algorithms, and JSON Proof Token and CBOR Proof Token specifications in preparation for presentation and discussions in the JOSE working group at IETF 123 in Madrid. The most significant updates were:

Changed the Single Use algorithm representations to use a common presentation proof format for both the Compact and CBOR serializations.
Defined a new binary “Presentation Internal Representation” so that the holder signature protects the entire presentation.
Changed the MAC algorithm to directly sign the binary Combined MAC Representation rather than convert it to a JWS.
Added step-by-step instructions for verification of a presentation.
Added CBOR examples.
Use JSON Proof Token and CBOR Proof Token terminology.
Aligned media type names and added media type suffixes.
Removed the JSON Serialization (leaving the Compact Serialization and the CBOR Serialization).
Made terminology changes to make the meanings of terms more intuitive.

These changes went into the -09 and -10 drafts of the specifications. See more details in the History entries of each spec.

The current drafts are available at:

Thanks to David Waite for doing the heavy lifting to make the bulk of these architectural changes, and especially for writing the code that makes the examples real!

More SPICEyness

On July 9, 2025

In CBOR, Claims, IETF, Specifications

In April, I wrote about several useful developments in the IETF Secure Patterns for Internet CrEdentials (SPICE) working group. I’ve recently contributed to progressing several specifications in preparation for the SPICE working group meeting at IETF 123 in Madrid. Here’s a tour…

I’ve become a contributor to the Selective Disclosure CWT (SD-CWT) specification. The draft we just published in preparation for IETF 123 contains significant enhancements, including better alignment with both SD-JWT and CWT, clearer and simpler specification of the use of encryption, creation of the Verifiable Credential Type Identifiers registry, using a CBOR simple value for redacted claims, and numerous editorial improvements. See the history entry for more details. This was joint work with Rohan Mahy and Orie Steele.

I’ve become an editor of the OpenID Connect Standard Claims Registration for CBOR Web Tokens specification, along with Beltram Maldant. It creates CWT equivalents of the standard JWT claims defined by OpenID Connect. The draft we just published in preparation for IETF 123 aligns the terminology used with OpenID Connect. I believe it’s ready for working group last call.

Brent Zundel and I updated the GLobal Unique Enterprise (GLUE) Identifiers specification to fix some links and update his association to Tradeverifyd. I believe this one is also ready for working group last call.

Finally, Brent and I updated the Traceability Claims specification to tighten up many of the claim definitions. See the history entries for details.

I’m looking forward to continued progress at the SPICE meeting in two weeks!

WGLC for JOSE and COSE HPKE Specifications

On June 5, 2025

In CBOR, Cryptography, IETF, JSON, Specifications

Hybrid Public Key Encryption (HPKE) was standardized by RFC 9180 in February 2022. It is “hybrid” in the sense that it combines public key cryptographic operations to establish a symmetric key with symmetric cryptographic algorithms using the established key to do the content encryption. It has its own set of registries where Key Encapsulation Mechanisms (KEMs), Key Derivation Functions (KDFs), and Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data (AEAD) algorithms used with HPKE are registered. The KEMs registered include post-quantum KEMs.

There’s been a multi-year effort to bring HPKE encryption to applications using JSON Web Encryption (JWE) and COSE encryption. As has been done by other protocols using HPKE, such as MLS, both the JOSE and COSE HPKE specifications made choices about which cryptographic operations make sense together in the specification’s context, as well as which HPKE features to use. Making those choices within the working groups is part of what made these specifications take a while. There’s also been a deliberate effort to keep the specifications aligned where it made sense.

The good news is that both the JOSE and COSE HPKE specifications have matured to the point where Working Group Last Call (WGLC) has started for them. The two WGLCs are intentionally running concurrently because the drafts are closely related and their functionality is intended to be aligned. They run until Friday, June 20, 2025.

Please participate in the WGLCs on either the jose@ietf.org or cose@ietf.org mailing lists, respectively. The messages to reply to are:

The specifications entering WGLC together are:

Finally, I’ll note that a new IETF HPKE working group has recently been formed to make updates to the HPKE specification. Among the chartered updates are adding post-quantum KEMs and hybrid combined KEMs.

Thanks to all in both working groups who helped us reach this point!

Ten Years of JSON Web Token (JWT) and Preparing for the Future

On May 25, 2025

In Claims, Cryptography, IETF, JSON, OAuth, OpenID, Specifications

Ten years ago this week, in May 2015, the JSON Web Token (JWT) became RFC 7519. This was the culmination of a 4.5 year journey to create a simple JSON-based security token format and underlying JSON-based cryptographic standards. The full set of RFCs published together was:

RFC 7515: JSON Web Signature (JWS)
RFC 7516: JSON Web Encryption (JWE)
RFC 7517: JSON Web Key (JWK)
RFC 7518: JSON Web Algorithms (JWA)
RFC 7519: JSON Web Token (JWT)
RFC 7520: Examples of Protecting Content Using JSON Object Signing and Encryption (JOSE)
RFC 7521: Assertion Framework for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants
RFC 7522: Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants
RFC 7523: JSON Web Token (JWT) Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants

It’s certainly the case that we co-designed JWT and its underpinnings with OpenID Connect, while also attempting to create general-purpose, widely useful standards. Given the adoption that’s ensued, it seems that we succeeded.

As I wrote in my post JWTs helping combat fraudulent and unwanted telephone calls, “It’s often said that one sign of a standard having succeeded is that it’s used for things that the inventors never imagined.” I’m gratified that this applies to JWT and the related specifications. As was written in the post Essential Moments in the OAuth and OpenID Connect Timeline, it’s now hard to imagine an online security world without these standards.

That said, there’s work underway to keep JWTs and the use of them secure for the next decade. Five years ago, the JSON Web Token Best Current Practices specification was created. As I wrote then:

This Best Current Practices specification contains a compendium of lessons learned from real JWT deployments and implementations over that period. It describes pitfalls and how to avoid them as well as new recommended practices that enable proactively avoiding problems that could otherwise arise.

My coauthors Yaron Sheffer and Dick Hardt and I are now updating the JWT BCP to describe additional threats and mitigations that have become known in the last five years. See the updated JSON Web Token Best Current Practices specification.

Similarly, my coauthors Brian Campbell and Chuck Mortimore of the JWT Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants are updating it and related specifications to address vulnerabilities caused by ambiguities in the audience values of tokens sent to the authorization server. See the RFC7523bis specification.

I’m truly grateful that my coauthors John Bradley and Nat Sakimura and I created something useful and widely used ten years ago, of course with substantial contributions from the OAuth, JOSE, and OpenID Connect working groups. I look forward to what the next decade will bring!

Fully-Specified Algorithms are now the Law of the Land

On May 13, 2025

In CBOR, Cryptography, IETF, JSON, Specifications

I’m thrilled to be able to report that, from now on, only fully-specified algorithms will be registered for JOSE and COSE. Furthermore, fully-specified signature algorithms are now registered to replace the previously registered polymorphic algorithms, which are now deprecated. For example, you can now use Ed25519 and Ed448 instead of the ambiguous EdDSA.

The new IANA JOSE registrations and IANA COSE registrations are now in place, as are the deprecations of the polymorphic signing algorithms. And perhaps most significantly for the long term, the instructions to the designated experts for both registries have been updated so that only fully-specified algorithms will be registered going forward.

Lots of people deserve credit for this significant improvement to both ecosystems. Filip Skokan was the canary in the coal mine, alerting the OpenID Connect working group to the problems with trying to sign with Ed25519 and Ed448 when there were no algorithm identifiers that could be used to specify their use. Similarly, John Bradley alerted the WebAuthn working group to the same problems for WebAuthn and FIDO2, devising the clever and awful workaround that, when used by those specs, EdDSA is to be interpreted as meaning Ed25519. John also supported this work as a JOSE working group chair. Roman Danyliw supported including the ability to specify the use of fully-specified algorithms in the JOSE charter as the Security Area Director then responsible for JOSE. Karen O’Donoghue created the shepherd write-up as JOSE co-chair. Deb Cooley thoroughly reviewed and facilitated advancement of the specification as the Security Area Director currently responsible for JOSE. And of course, Orie Steele, the co-inventor of the fully-specified algorithms idea, and my co-author since our audacious proposal to fix the polymorphic algorithms problem at IETF 117 in July 2023 deserves huge credit for making the proposal a reality!

The specification is now in the RFC Editor Queue. I can’t wait until it pops out the other side as an RFC!

The specification is available at:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-jose-fully-specified-algorithms/

Thanks to all who helped make fully-specified algorithms the law of the land!

So you want to use Digital Credentials? You’re now facing a myriad of choices!

In CBOR, Claims, Events, Federation, IETF, Interoperability, JSON, OpenID, Privacy, Specifications

EIC 2025 Logo I gave the keynote talk So you want to use Digital Credentials? You’re now facing a myriad of choices! at EIC 2025. I opened by describing engineering choices – credential formats (W3C VCs, ISO mDOCs, SD-JWTs, SD-CWTs, JWPs, X.509 Certificates), issuance and presentation mechanisms (bespoke and standards-based, in-person and remote), mechanisms for choosing them (query languages, user interfaces), and trust establishment mechanisms (trust lists, certificates, and federation).

I then upped the ante by talking about the criticality of usability, the challenges of building ecosystems (something Andrew Nash first explained to me most of two decades ago!), and how digital credentials are not an end in and of themselves; they’re a tool to help us solve real-world problems. And of course, I closed by coming back to my theme Standards are About Making Choices, urging us to come together and make the right choices to enable interoperable use of digital credentials in ways that benefit people worldwide.

View my slides as PowerPoint or PDF. I’ll also post a link to the video of the presentation here once Kuppinger Cole posts it.

EIC 2025 Andrew Nash

Thought Experiment on Trust Establishment

Will people be able to use it and want to?

Standards Are About Making Choices

Thank You to SIROS

Mike Jones Candid

Fully-Specified Algorithms Specification Addressing IESG Feedback

In CBOR, Cryptography, IETF, JSON, Specifications

Orie Steele and I have updated the “Fully-Specified Algorithms for JOSE and COSE” specification to address feedback received through directorate reviews and from Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) members. This prepares us for consideration of the specification by the IESG during its “telechat” on Thursday. This is an important milestone towards progressing the specification to become an RFC.

Changes made since I last wrote about the spec, as summarized in the history entries, are:

-11

Stated in the abstract that the specification deprecates some polymorphic algorithm identifiers, as suggested by Éric Vyncke.

-10

Provided a complete list of the Recommended column terms for COSE registrations, as suggested by Mohamed Boucadair.
Applied suggestions to improve the exposition received during IESG review.

-09

Addressed comments from secdir review by Kathleen Moriarty.

-08

Updated requested Brainpool algorithm numbers to match those chosen by Sean Turner.
Incorporated wording suggestions by Vijay Gurbani.

The specification is available at:

https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-jose-fully-specified-algorithms-11.html

Hybrid Public Key Encryption (HPKE) for JOSE incorporating feedback from IETF 122

On April 25, 2025

In Cryptography, IETF, JSON, Specifications

The “Use of Hybrid Public-Key Encryption (HPKE) with JSON Object Signing and Encryption (JOSE)” specification has updated to incorporate feedback from IETF 122 in Bangkok.

Per the History entries, the changes were:

Use "enc":"int" for integrated encryption.
Described the reasons for excluding authenticated HPKE.
Stated that mutually known private information MAY be used as the HPKE info value.

At this point, the authors have closed all the issues and PRs that we believe there’s consensus to address. I would normally suggest that we’re ready for working group last call at this point, but I’d like us to take the extra step to verify that the spec is aligned with the COSE HPKE spec first. Both as an author of the JOSE HPKE spec and as a COSE chair interested in the COSE HPKE spec, I’d request that members of both working groups review the specs together and send their feedback.

OAuth 2.0 Protected Resource Metadata is now RFC 9728

On April 23, 2025

In IETF, OAuth, Specifications

OAuth logo The OAuth 2.0 Protected Resource Metadata specification has been published as RFC 9728! This is certainly the longest that any RFC that I have worked on has taken from initial individual draft to RFC – August 2016 to April 2025 – 8 years and 8 months. As we discussed at the 2025 OAuth Security Workshop in Reykjavík:

Timing can be fickle. What may not be useful at one time can turn out to be useful later.

Per the abstract, here’s what it adds to the OAuth 2.0 family of specifications:

This specification defines a metadata format that an OAuth 2.0 client or authorization server can use to obtain the information needed to interact with an OAuth 2.0 protected resource.

It joins the OAuth 2.0 Dynamic Client Registration Protocol [RFC 7591] and OAuth 2.0 Authorization Server Metadata [RFC 8414] specifications, completing the set of metadata specifications for all three OAuth 2.0 roles.

I’m glad to have co-authored this one with long-time collaborator Phil Hunt and new collaborator Aaron Parecki. And I’m proud of the fact that all of my last five RFCs had a co-author for which it was their first RFC; in this case, it’s Aaron’s first RFC.

Congratulations, Aaron! It was a pleasure working on this with you.

SPICEy Developments

On April 18, 2025

In CBOR, Claims, IETF, Specifications

This week saw several useful developments in the IETF Secure Patterns for Internet CrEdentials (SPICE) working group. Two new drafts were adopted and an individual draft was published also intended for later adoption by the working group. Here’s the tour…

GLobal Unique Enterprise (GLUE) Identifiers was adopted. The specification’s abstract is:

This specification establishes an IETF URN namespace for GLobal Unique Enterprise (GLUE) Identifiers. It also establishes an IETF URN namespace for identifiers defined by the IETF Secure Patterns for Internet CrEdentials (SPICE) working group. The GLUE URN namespace is within the SPICE URN namespace.

I worked closely with Brent Zundel on this one, primarily defining and using the IETF SPICE URN namespace, in which the GLUE namespace now resides.
OpenID Connect standard claims registration for CBOR Web Tokens was adopted. The specification’s abstract is:

This document registers OpenID Connect standards claims already used in JSON Web Tokens for CBOR Web Tokens.

While I didn’t work on this specification directly, I did suggest changes to the initial version to its author, Beltram Maldant, intended to make the spec ready for working group adoption, in my role as a Designated Expert for the IANA CBOR Web Token (CWT) Claims registry. I’m glad this is happening!
Traceability Claims was updated with an eye towards future working group adoption. The specification’s abstract is:

This document defines claims to support traceability of physical goods across supply chains, focusing on items such as bills of lading, transport modes, and container manifests. These claims standardize the encoding of essential logistics and transport metadata, facilitating enhanced transparency and accountability in global supply chains. These claims are registered for use in both CBOR Web Tokens (CWTs) and JSON Web Tokens (JWTs).

I worked closely with Mike Prorock on this one, primarily motivating and refining the claim definitions and registering JWT claims in addition to the corresponding CWT claims.

SPICEy indeed!

Fully-Specified Algorithms Specification Addressing Area Director Feedback

On March 7, 2025

In CBOR, Cryptography, IETF, JSON, Specifications

Orie Steele and I want to thank Deb Cooley for her Area Director review of the “Fully-Specified Algorithms for JOSE and COSE” specification. Addressing it simplified the exposition, while preserving the essence of what the draft accomplishes.

Specifically, the resulting draft significantly simplified the fully-specified encryption description and removed the appendix on polymorphic ECDH algorithms. We also stated that HSS-LMS is not fully specified, as suggested by John Preuß Mattsson.

The draft has now completed IETF last call, with the two resulting reviews stating that the draft is ready for publication.

The specification is available at:

https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-jose-fully-specified-algorithms-07.html

COSE Algorithms for Two-Party Signing

On March 3, 2025

In CBOR, Cryptography, FIDO, IETF, Specifications, W3C

Emil Lundberg and I have published the COSE Algorithms for Two-Party Signing specification. Its abstract is:

This specification defines COSE algorithm identifiers used when the signing operation is performed cooperatively between two parties. When performing two-party signing, the first party typically hashes the data to be signed and the second party signs the hashed data computed by the first party. This can be useful when communication with the party holding the signing private key occurs over a limited-bandwidth channel, such as NFC or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), in which it is infeasible to send the complete set of data to be signed. The resulting signatures are identical in structure to those computed by a single party, and can be verified using the same verification procedure without additional steps to preprocess the signed data.

A motivating use case for this is for WebAuthn/FIDO2 Authenticators to use when signing application data, as described in the proposed WebAuthn signing extension. Parts of this spec’s content were previously in the Asynchronous Remote Key Generation (ARKG) algorithm spec, which we’ve also been updated.

I plan to talk about the spec during IETF 122 in Bangkok. I hope to see many of you there!

The specification is available at:

https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-lundberg-cose-two-party-signing-algs-01.html

This work was supported by the SIROS Foundation.

The Cambrian Explosion of OAuth and OpenID Specifications

On February 28, 2025

In Events, IETF, OAuth, OpenID, Specifications

OAuth Security Workshop Vladimir Dzhuvinov and I led a discussion on The Cambrian Explosion of OAuth and OpenID Specifications at the 2025 OAuth Security Workshop in Reykjavík.

The abstract for the session was:

The number of OAuth and OpenID specifications continues to grow. At present there are 30 OAuth RFCs, two more in the RFC Editor queue, 13 OAuth working group drafts, and another eight individual OAuth drafts that may advance. There are nine JOSE RFCs and seven working group drafts. There are four SecEvent RFCs. On the OpenID side, there are 12 final OpenID Connect specs, three final FAPI specs, one final MODRNA spec, three final eKYC-IDA specs, and 24 Implementer’s drafts across the OpenID working groups, plus another ten working group drafts.

The number of possible combinations boggles the mind. And there’s no end in sight!

What’s a developer to do? How have people and companies gone about selecting and curating the specs to implement in an attempt to create coherent and useful open source and commercial offerings? And faced with such an array of combinations and choices, how are application developers to make sense of it all? How can interoperability be achieved in the face of continued innovation?

This session will prime the pump by discussing choices made by some existing open source and commercial offerings in the OAuth and OpenID space and lead to an open discussion of choices made by the workshop attendees and the reasoning behind them. It’s our goal that useful strategies emerge from the discussion that help people grapple with the ever-expanding sets of specifications and make informed implementation choices, while still fostering the innovation and problem-solving that these specifications represent.

The slides used to queue up the discussion session are available as PowerPoint and PDF. Also, see the list of 101 OAuth and OpenID-related specifications referenced during the discussion.

The topic seems to have touched a chord. Many people were clearly already thinking about the situation and shared their views. Some of them were:

Nobody actually expects everyone to implement everything.
Stopping things is super hard. But sometimes it’s necessary (as Brian Campbell put it, “when they’re wrong”).
Timing can be fickle. What may not be useful at one time can turn out to be useful later.
Some specs are highly related and often used together. But those relationships are not always apparent to those new to the space.
We need better on-ramps to help people new to the space wrap their arms around the plethora specs and what they’re useful for.
Well-written profiles are a way of managing the complexity. For instance, FAPI 2 limits choices, increasing both interoperability and security.
The amount of innovation happening is a sign of success!

Thanks to the organizers for a great tenth OAuth Security Workshop! And special thanks to the colleagues from Signicat who did a superb job with local arrangements in Reykjavík!

Twenty Years of Digital Identity!

On February 2, 2025

In Events, IETF, JSON, OAuth, OpenID, People

Kim Cameron first told me what Digital Identity is on February 1, 2005. He said that the Internet was created without an identity layer. He encouraged me “You should come help build it with me.” I’ve been at it ever since!

What I wrote about digital identity a decade ago remains as true today:

An interesting thing about digital identity is that, by definition, it’s not a problem that any one company can solve, no matter how great their technology is. For digital identity to be “solved”, the solution has to be broadly adopted, or else people will continue having different experiences at different sites and applications. Solving digital identity requires ubiquitously adopted identity standards. Part of the fun and the challenge is making that happen.

I’m not going to even try to list all the meaningful identity and security initiatives that I’ve had the privilege to work on with many of you. But I can’t resist saying that, in my view, OpenID Connect, JSON Web Token (JWT), and OAuth 2.0 are the ones that we knocked out of the park. I tried to distill the lessons learned from many of the initiatives, both successes and failures, during my 2023 EIC keynote Touchstones Along My Identity Journey. And there’s a fairly complete list of the consequential things I’ve gotten to work on in my Standards CV.

I’ll also call attention to 2025 marking twenty years of the Internet Identity Workshop. I attended the first one, which was held in Berkeley, California in October 2005, and all but one since. What a cast of characters I met there, many of whom I continue working with to this day!

As a personal testament to the value of IIW, it’s where many of the foundational decisions about what became JWS, JWE, JWK, JWT, and OpenID Connect were made. Particularly, see my post documenting decisions made at IIW about JWS, including the header.payload.signature representation of the JWS Compact Serialization and the decision to secure the Header Parameters. And see the posts following it on JWE decisions, naming decisions, and JWK decisions. IIW continues playing the role of enabling foundational discussions for emerging identity technologies today!

It’s been a privilege working with all of you for these two decades, and I love what we’ve accomplished together! There’s plenty of consequential work under way and I’m really looking forward to what comes next.

Images are courtesy of Doc Searls. Each photo links to the original.

OAuth 2.0 Protected Resource Metadata Specification in RFC Editor Queue

On October 17, 2024

In IETF, OAuth, Specifications

OAuth logo I’m pleased to report that the “OAuth 2.0 Protected Resource Metadata” specification has been approved by the IESG and is now in the RFC Editor queue.

The version approved by the IESG and sent to the RFC Editor is:

https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-oauth-resource-metadata-13.html

It joins OAuth 2.0 Security Best Current Practice and JWT Response for OAuth Token Introspection, which are also both currently there.

Thanks to the IETF directorate reviewers and IESG members for their feedback that resulted in improvements to the specification!

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