Suggestions by @aww-aww 1: grammatical fixes - #188
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| While a CA signature is sufficient to prove a subtree came from the CA, this is not enough to ensure the certificate is visible to monitors. A misbehaving CA might not operate the log correctly, either presenting inconsistent versions of the log to relying parties and monitors, or refusing to publish some entries. | ||
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| To mitigate this, relying parties SHOULD ensure transparency by requiring a quorum of signatures from additional cosigners. At minimum, these cosigners SHOULD enforce a consistent view of the log. For example, {{TLOG-WITNESS}} describes a lightweight "witness" cosigner role that checks this with consistency proofs. This is not sufficient to ensure durable logging. {{revocation-by-index}} discusses mitigations for this. Alternatively, a relying party MAY require cosigners that serve a copy of the log, in addition to enforcing a consistent view. For example, {{TLOG-MIRROR}} describes a "mirror" cosigner role. | ||
| To mitigate this, relying parties SHOULD ensure transparency by requiring a quorum of signatures from additional cosigners. At minimum, these cosigners SHOULD enforce a consistent view of the log. For example, {{TLOG-WITNESS}} describes a lightweight "witness" cosigner role that checks this with consistency proofs. This is not sufficient to ensure durable logging. {{revocation-by-index}} discusses mitigations for this. Alternatively, a relying party MAY require that cosigners serve a copy of the log, in addition to enforcing a consistent view. For example, {{TLOG-MIRROR}} describes a "mirror" cosigner role. |
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This does slightly change the meaning, but I think both meanings are fine.
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davidben
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Feb 25, 2026
| An ASN.1 structure like X.509’s Certificate is an abstract data type that is independent of its serialization. There are multiple encoding rules for ASN.1. Commonly, protocols use DER {{X.690}}, such as {{Section 4.4.2 of ?RFC8446}}. This aligns with {{Section 4.1.1.3 of ?RFC5280}}, which says X.509 signatures are computed over the DER-encoded TBSCertificate. After signature verification, applications can assume the DER-encoded TBSCertificate is not malleable. | ||
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| While the signature verification process in {{verifying-certificate-signatures}} first transforms the TBSCertificate into a TBSCertificateLogEntry, it preserves this non-malleability. There is a unique valid DER encoding for every abstract TBSCertificate structure, so malleability of the DER-encoded TBSCertificate reduces to malleability of the TBSCertificate value: | ||
| When the signature verification process in {{verifying-certificate-signatures}} first transforms the TBSCertificate into a TBSCertificateLogEntry, it preserves this non-malleability. There is a unique valid DER encoding for every abstract TBSCertificate structure, so malleability of the DER-encoded TBSCertificate reduces to malleability of the TBSCertificate value: |
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Also a slight meaning change, but new meaning works too. :-)
(I originally meant it in the sense of "yes, there is a transform and that makes it not obvious, but it's fine".)
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From #174