Month: January 2022

Working Group Adoption of the JWK Thumbprint URI Specification

On January 29, 2022

In Cryptography, IETF, OAuth, OpenID, Specifications

OAuth logo The IETF OAuth working group has adopted the JWK Thumbprint URI specification. The abstract of the specification is:

This specification registers a kind of URI that represents a JSON Web Key (JWK) Thumbprint value. JWK Thumbprints are defined in RFC 7638. This enables JWK Thumbprints to be used, for instance, as key identifiers in contexts requiring URIs.

The need for this arose during specification work in the OpenID Connect working group. In particular, JWK Thumbprint URIs are used as key identifiers that can be syntactically distinguished from other kinds of identifiers also expressed as URIs in the Self-Issued OpenID Provider v2 specification.

Given that the specification does only one simple thing in a straightforward manner, we believe that it is ready for working group last call.

The specification is available at:

https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-oauth-jwk-thumbprint-uri-00.html

Described more of the motivations for the JWK Thumbprint URI specification

By Mike Jones

On January 12, 2022

In Cryptography, IETF, OAuth, OpenID, Specifications

OAuth logo As requested by the chairs during today’s OAuth Virtual Office Hours call, Kristina Yasuda and I have updated the JWK Thumbprint URI specification to enhance the description of the motivations for the specification. In particular, it now describes using JWK Thumbprint URIs as key identifiers that can be syntactically distinguished from other kinds of identifiers also expressed as URIs. It is used this way in the Self-Issued OpenID Provider v2 specification, for instance. No normative changes were made.

As discussed on the call, we are requesting that that the chairs use this new draft as the basis for a call for working group adoption.

The specification is available at:

https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-jones-oauth-jwk-thumbprint-uri-01.html

Computing Archaeology Expedition: The First Smiley :-)

By Mike Jones

On January 1, 2022

In History, People

Scott Fahlman with Smiley In September 1982, artificial intelligence professor Scott Fahlman made a post on the Carnegie Mellon Computer Science Department “general” bboard inventing the original smiley :-). I remember thinking at the time when I read it “what a good idea!”. But in 2002 when I told friends about it, I couldn’t find Scott’s post online anywhere.

So in 2002, I led a computing archaeology expedition to restore his post. As described in my original post describing this accomplishment, after a significant effort to locate it, on September 10, 2002 the original post made by Scott Fahlman on CMU CS general bboard was retrieved by Jeff Baird from an October 1982 backup tape of the spice vax (cmu-750x). Here is Scott’s original post:

19-Sep-82 11:44    Scott E  Fahlman             :-)
From: Scott E  Fahlman <Fahlman at Cmu-20c>

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways.  Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends.  For this, use

:-(

I’m reposting this here now both to recommemorate the accomplishment nearly twenty years later, and because my page at Microsoft Research where it was originally posted is no longer available.