Hi

> On 22 Dec 2024, at 20:35, Watson Ladd <watsonbl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> The fact that you and everyone else feels content to shoot down text
> rather than try to meet me halfway shows that this isn't an honest
> attempt to achieve rough consensus or conversely say my views are in
> the rough because of actually thinking through the issue.  I've been
> consistent in raising this issue for over a year: to pretend that the
> WGLC is at all relevant to where we are is a ridiculous excuse made
> possible only by your own inaction on this issue. I've tried to tweak
> the text to make it work better, at length, but it's very hard when
> people say they have concerns without being clear or suggesting
> alternatives. I'd appreciate you doing me the same courtesy, rather
> than sitting back and saying "nah, no one agrees enough for us to
> handle it". I agree that my text may be too limiting or overly
> prescriptive, but the people closer to the problem need to provide
> input if there is going to be a text we can live with.

I believe much of this goes back to something you said earlier - that you 
believe (based on your suggested normative text and your explanation thereof) 
it should be mandated to use less privacy preserving technologies instead of 
SD-JWT in some cases. You are of course welcome to hold that opinion, but it 
seems it is not reflected in the working group consensus.

I don’t think it is helpful to repeatedly make very similar proposals whilst 
ignoring the feedback on why that proposal is inappropriate, nor does it look 
like trying to meet halfway - this current proposal and discussion is very 
similar to, for example, 
https://github.com/oauth-wg/oauth-selective-disclosure-jwt/pull/448/files

Whilst I am not saying this is what is deliberately happening here, suggesting 
text that is overly strict in the hopes of ‘meeting halfway’ is not usually an 
appropriate strategy in standards development. In my view the general 
expectation is that text proposed should be a genuine attempt to document the 
consensus of the working group.

The authors appear to have tried to address your concerns, 
https://github.com/oauth-wg/oauth-selective-disclosure-jwt/pull/451 was a 
response to try and address the underlying issue the above PR was trying to 
address.

> Secondly the verifier-verifier unlinkability
> really doesn't have much in the way of actual mitigations: it says you
> can use one-use credentials, etc. but doesn't mandate, provide
> designs, explain how to issue based on a previous credential etc. It
> at least has that material.

Issuing credentials (including how to do batches and re-issuance) is out of 
scope for the SD-JWT specification itself (in the same way issuing a JWT is out 
of scope for the JWT specifications) and already dealt with in, for example, 
https://github.com/openid/OpenID4VCI 

> To be absolutely clear, this is what the current text says in its most
> relevant section "In considering Issuer/Verifier unlinkability, it is
> important to note the potential for an asymmetric power dynamic
> between Issuers and Verifiers. This dynamic can compel an otherwise
> honest Verifier into collusion. For example, a governmental Issuer
> might have the authority to mandate that a Verifier report back
> information about the credentials presented to it. Legal requirements
> could further enforce this, explicitly undermining Issuer/Verifier
> unlinkability. Similarly, a large service provider issuing credentials
> might implicitly pressure Verifiers into collusion by incentivizing
> participation in their larger ecosystem. Deployers of SD-JWT must be
> aware of these potential power dynamics, mitigate them as much as
> possible, and/or make the risks transparent to the End-User."
> 
> That text has a lot of problems:
> 
> - It presents the issue as one of coercion or malfeasance, rather than
> e.g. excessive logging, or some other information leak letting the
> issuer see what the verifier knows.

I think this is covered by 
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-oauth-selective-disclosure-jwt-14.html#section-10.2
 ? If not “leaking SD-JWTs to anyone is problematic for privacy" seems like a 
specific thing that can be addressed.

> - It says deployers must mitigate the power dynamics, rather than use
> technical means, with no real guidance as to what that mitigation
> looks like

I don’t think there have been any proposals of technical means that can prevent 
this today?

> - It doesn't say what the risks are that must be made transparent

Various risks are explained in the prior 4 paragraphs. Does changing “risks” to 
“risks as describe above” help?

> 
> It's not something that someone can use to say "no, we shouldn't do X"
> for any X.
> 
> All I've been asking to add now is a specific example of what a user
> might need to know and that if this can't be achieved, don't use
> SD-JWT. I'm surprised by the enormous pushback to this. All I want to
> know is is there some form of this we could live with, or what are the
> concrete issues people have with the proposal. So far I've gotten that
> actually naming mitigations is a problem. How on earth do I work with
> that?

Naming possible mitigations is fine as far as I know - naming a single possible 
mitigation (which is impractical in some cases) with a ‘MUST’ is however 
problematic. (e.g. "MUST analyze the consequences for such linkage with each
credential that could be used” as per your first email in this thread.)

> Conversely, if you think age verification with SD-JWT is fine, save me
> the time and let me know.

I believe I've said that, including in your PR I linked above: there are 
situations where SD-JWT is the best currently available deployable technology 
for a user disclosing their age to a verifier, and yes, it is absolutely 
appropriate to use the best currently available deployable technology to solve 
a real world problem. Yes, in some situations it can’t achieve issuer-verifier 
unlinkability, but in those situations it can still achieve better data 
minimisation than alternative technologies. Maybe in the future we will have 
better solutions available and at that point it might be appropriate to start 
adding stronger text.

A presentation where only a date of birth is disclosed is an example explicitly 
mentioned in the specification too.

I’m deliberately avoiding the term ‘age verification’ there as I think you’re 
trying to use it to describe some fairly specific situation that hasn’t been 
defined - I’m not sure whether a stronger statement is possible about the 
specific case of age verification you seem to be thinking of, as I’m not clear 
on what that case is, and as I said in my 1st August comment “age verification” 
is an overly generic term that incorporates a large number of very disparate 
use cases.

Joseph

_______________________________________________
OAuth mailing list -- oauth@ietf.org
To unsubscribe send an email to oauth-le...@ietf.org

Reply via email to