RE: next (hopefully final) revision (08) of ERS - discussion about order of hashtrees by time and not binary

["Tobias Gondrom" <tgondrom@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello all,

after a short and very good email exchange with Tilo yesterday evening,
we agreed to the status that we should address the request and
discussion for an option to order hashtrees by time of archiving
(instead of binary order) as an additional option for a future revision
of ERS (version 2) and will proceed with the current ERS as planned to
come to a release. 

Thanks, Tobias



Ps.: please note that I also received an email from Mr. Damm-Goossen
(manager of the company of Tilo) who also asked to change the
specification so that it matches their current implementation. His main
reason is because they've already rolled out their own proprietary
solution to some customers and they would have to change this if we
would not adjust our WG draft to match their implementation. At the
moment this argument is only motivating me more to finally get ERS
released as standard ASAP, and not to change the draft. 
1. arguments on the mailing list are conclusive: Robert's arguments and
the other discussions give clear reasons why the draft (with binary
order of hash trees) is the right and best approach. (binary order is a
reliable criteria, the time of archiving is NOT, it is s.th. that can
neither be guaranteed nor really relied on - detailed discussion on
mailinglist at May 16th and 17th this year.)
2. The request to change a draft to match a proprietary implementation
because there are deployments by one individual company who didn't care
about the draft at the design time and now wants to reduce any work
implied by their individual approach can not be a valid argument to
change a draft. If the WG/IETF would follow such a path we would never
be able to agree on a standard at all. 




> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ietf-ltans@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-ietf-ltans@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Tobias Gondrom
> Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 10:19 PM
> To: Tilo Kienitz
> Cc: ietf-ltans@xxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: next (hopefully final) revision (08) of ERS
> 
> 
> Hi Tilo,
> 
> actually I did not intend to ignore your comment. I just thought that
> the answer Robert gave to your comment one day later was pretty good
> explaining why it does not make any real sense to sort the hashvalues
by
> date and not in binary order. (especially as I did not see any further
> answer from you on that)
> 
> And I and the other authors fully agree with Robert's analysis and
> arguments...
> 
> If Robert or I am wrong please let me know.
> 
> Tobias
> 
> 
> Ps.: maybe there is also a misunderstanding about this issue, so if
you
> like to discuss this on the phone for a few minutes maybe we can
> exchange some arguments and see whether I missed s.th. or we can
report
> to the mailing list that the question could be resolved or we need
> further dispute on that. (if you like you can give me a call at
> +498946291816)
> 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Tilo Kienitz [mailto:tk-tlslist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 11:39 AM
> > To: Tobias Gondrom
> > Cc: ietf-ltans@xxxxxxx
> > Subject: Re: next (hopefully final) revision (08) of ERS
> >
> > Hello Tobias,
> >
> > if this is the final revision, then I assume that you do not intend
> > to answer on my e-mail from 16 June regarding the sorting of the
> > hash values?
> >
> > Kind regards
> > Tilo Kienitz
> >
> >
> > Tobias Gondrom wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I just completed the next revision of ERS and submitted it to the
> > > IETF-secretary.
> > >
> > > It contains the following changes as found by your reviews (thanks
> to
> > > Peter, Julien, Robert, Bill and Carl):
> > >
> > > 1. Split the reducedHashtree in SEQ of PartialHashtree for easier
> > > reading and better understanding
> > >
> > > 2. Set the tags [0] and [1] to ArchiveTimeStamp structure (and
> removed
> > > the EXPLICIT tags again as they are no longer necessary with the
[0]
> and
> > > [1] to guarantee unambiguousness).
> > >
> > > So the total change is from:
> > >
> > > ArchiveTimeStamp ::= SEQUENCE {
> > >
> > >   digestAlgorithm    AlgorithmIdentifier OPTIONAL,
> > >
> > >   reducedHashtree  ***** [0] EXPLICIT* SEQUENCE OF SEQUENCE OF
OCTET
> > > STRING   OPTIONAL,
> > >
> > >   timeStamp         ContentInfo}
> > >
> > >
> > > added tag to:
> > >
> > > ArchiveTimeStamp ::= SEQUENCE {
> > >
> > >   digestAlgorithm***** [0]* AlgorithmIdentifier OPTIONAL,
> > >
> > >   reducedHashtree***** [1]* SEQUENCE OF***** PartialHashtree*
> OPTIONAL,
> > >
> > >   timeStamp       ContentInfo}
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > *PartialHashtree ::= SEQUENCE OF OCTET STRING*******
> > >
> > > 3. Mentioned with the versioning of EvidenceRecord that default
> value is
> > > 1 and lower version numbers indicate it is a version prior this
> released
> > > document.
> > >
> > > 4. kept the IMPORTs as Russ made clear at the last WG meeting in
> > > Montreal that to remove them would result in rejection by the AD
at
> > > submission.
> > >
> > > Thanks, Tobias