Split specification.md into three separate files.

README.md

@@ -2,21 +2,44 @@
 
 Simple, foolproof standard for signing arbitrary data.
 
-*   Why not [JOSE/JWS/JWT](https://jwt.io)? JSON-specific, too complicated, too
-    easy to mess up.
-*   Why not [PASETO](https://paseto.io)? JSON-specific, too opinionated.
+## Features
+
+*   Supports arbitrary message encodings, not just JSON.
+*   Authenticates the message *and* the type to avoid confusion attacks.
+*   Avoids canonicalization to reduce attack surface.
+*   Allows any desired crypto primitives or libraries.
+
+See [Background](background.md) for more information, including design
+considerations and rationale.
 
 ## What is it?
 
-*   [Signature protocol](specification.md)
-*   [Data structure](specification.md) for storing the message and signatures
+Specifications for:
+
+*   [Protocol](protocol.md) (*required*)
+*   [Data structure](envelope.md), a.k.a. "Envelope" (*recommended*)
 *   (pending #9) Suggested crypto primitives
 
 Out of scope (for now at least):
 
 *   Key management / PKI
 
+## Why not...?
+
+*   Why not raw signatures? Too fragile.
+*   Why not [JOSE/JWS/JWT](https://jwt.io)? JSON-specific, too complicated, too
+    easy to mess up.
+*   Why not [PASETO](https://paseto.io)? JSON-specific, too opinionated.
+*   Why not the legacy TUF/in-toto signature scheme? JSON-specific, relies on
+    canonicalization.
+
+See [Background](background.md) for further motivation.
+
 ## Who uses it?
 
+<!-- Reminder: once in-toto and TUF switch to this new format, update the rest
+of the docs that currently reference the old format as "current", "existing",
+etc. -->
+
 *   [in-toto](https://in-toto.io) (pending [ITE-5](https://github.com/in-toto/ITE/pull/13))
 *   [TUF](https://theupdateframework.io) (pending)

background.md

@@ -0,0 +1,167 @@
+# Background
+
+## What is the intended use case?
+
+This can be used anywhere digital signatures are needed.
+
+The initial application is for signing software supply chain metadata in [TUF]
+and [in-toto].
+
+## Why do we need this?
+
+There is no other simple, foolproof signature scheme that we are aware of.
+
+*   Raw signatures are too fragile. Every public key must be used for exactly
+    one purpose over exactly one message type, lest the system be vulnerable to
+    [confusion attacks](#motivation). In many cases, this results in a difficult
+    key management problem.
+
+*   [TUF] and [in-toto] currently use a scheme that avoids these problems but is
+    JSON-specific and relies on [canonicalization](motivation.md), which is an
+    unnecessarily large attack surface.
+
+*   [JWS] is JSON-specific, complicated, and error-prone.
+
+*   [PASETO] is JSON-specific and too opinionated. For example, it mandates
+    ed25519 signatures, which may not be useful in all cases.
+
+The intent of this project is to define a minimal signature scheme that avoids
+these issues.
+
+## Design requirements
+
+The [protocol](protocol.md):
+
+*   MUST reduce the possibility of a client misinterpreting the payload (e.g.
+    interpreting a JSON message as protobuf)
+*   MUST support arbitrary payload types (e.g. not just JSON)
+*   MUST support arbitrary crypto primitives, libraries, and key management
+    systems (e.g. Tink vs openssl, Google KMS vs Amazon KMS)
+*   SHOULD avoid depending on canonicalization for security
+*   SHOULD NOT require unnecessary encoding (e.g. base64)
+*   SHOULD NOT require the verifier to parse the payload before verifying
+
+The [data structure](envelope.md):
+
+*   MUST include both message and signature(s)
+    *   NOTE: Detached signatures are supported by having the included message
+        contain a cryptographic hash of the external data.
+*   MUST support multiple signatures in one structure / file
+*   SHOULD discourage users from reading the payload without verifying the
+    signatures
+*   SHOULD be easy to parse using common libraries (e.g. JSON)
+*   SHOULD support a hint indicating what signing key was used
+
+## Motivation
+
+There are two concerns with the current [in-toto]/[TUF] signature envelope.
+
+First, the signature scheme depends on [Canonical JSON], which has one practical
+problem and two theoretical ones:
+
+1.  Practical problem: It requires the payload to be JSON or convertible to
+    JSON. While this happens to be true of in-toto and TUF today, a generic
+    signature layer should be able to handle arbitrary payloads.
+1.  Theoretical problem 1: Two semantically different payloads could have the
+    same canonical encoding. Although there are currently no known attacks on
+    Canonical JSON, there have been attacks in the past on other
+    canonicalization schemes
+    ([example](https://latacora.micro.blog/2019/07/24/how-not-to.html#canonicalization)).
+    It is safer to avoid canonicalization altogether.
+1.  Theoretical problem 2: It requires the verifier to parse the payload before
+    verifying, which is both error-prone—too easy to forget to verify—and an
+    unnecessarily increased attack surface.
+
+The preferred solution is to transmit the encoded byte stream exactly as it was
+signed, which the verifier verifies before parsing. This is what is done in
+[JWS] and [PASETO], for example.
+
+Second, the scheme does not include an authenticated "context" indicator to
+ensure that the signer and verifier interpret the payload in the same exact way.
+For example, if in-toto were extended to support CBOR and protobuf encoding, the
+signer could get a CI/CD system to produce a CBOR message saying X and then a
+verifier to interpret it as a protobuf message saying Y. While we don't know of
+an exploitable attack on in-toto or TUF today, potential changes could introduce
+such a vulnerability. The signature scheme should be resilient against these
+classes of attacks. See [example attack](hypothetical_signature_attack.ipynb)
+for more details.
+
+## Reasoning
+
+Our goal was to create a signature envelope that is as simple and foolproof as
+possible. Alternatives such as [JWS] are extremely complex and error-prone,
+while others such as [PASETO] are overly specific. (Both are also
+JSON-specific.) We believe our proposal strikes the right balance of simplicity,
+usefulness, and security.
+
+Rationales for specific decisions:
+
+-   Why use base64 for payload and sig?
+
+    -   Because JSON strings do not allow binary data, so we need to either
+        encode the data or escape it. Base64 is a standard, reasonably
+        space-efficient way of doing so. Protocols that have a first-class
+        concept of "bytes", such as protobuf or CBOR, do not need to use base64.
+
+-   Why sign raw bytes rather than base64 encoded bytes (as per JWS)?
+
+    -   Because it's simpler. Base64 is only needed for putting binary data in a
+        text field, such as JSON. In other formats, such as protobuf or CBOR,
+        base64 isn't needed at all.
+
+-   Why does payloadType need to be signed?
+
+    -   See [Motivation](#motivation).
+
+-   Why use PAE?
+
+    -   Because we need an unambiguous way of serializing two fields,
+        payloadType and payload. PAE is already documented and good enough. No
+        need to reinvent the wheel.
+
+-   Why use a URI for payloadType rather than
+    [Media Type](https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml)
+    (a.k.a. MIME type)?
+
+    -   Because Media Type only indicates how to parse but does not indicate
+        purpose, schema, or versioning. If it were just "application/json", for
+        example, then every application would need to impose some "type" field
+        within the payload, lest we have similar vulnerabilities as if
+        payloadType were not signed.
+    -   Also, URIs don't need to be registered while Media Types do.
+
+-   Why not stay backwards compatible by requiring the payload to always be JSON
+    with a "_type" field? Then if you want a non-JSON payload, you could simply
+    have a field that contains the real payload, e.g. `{"_type":"my-thing",
+    "value":"base64…"}`.
+
+    1.  It encourages users to add a "_type" field to their payload, which in
+        turn:
+        -   (a) Ties the payload type to the authentication type. Ideally the
+            two would be independent.
+        -   (b) May conflict with other uses of that same field.
+        -   (c) May require the user to specify type multiple times with
+            different field names, e.g. with "@context" for
+            [JSON-LD](https://json-ld.org/).
+    2.  It would incur double base64 encoding overhead for non-JSON payloads.
+    3.  It is more complex than PAE.
+
+## Backwards Compatibility
+
+Backwards compatibility with the old [in-toto]/[TUF] format will be handled by
+the application and explained in the corresponding application-specific change
+proposal, namely [ITE-5](https://github.com/in-toto/ITE/pull/13) for in-toto and
+via the principles laid out in
+[TAP-14](https://github.com/theupdateframework/taps/blob/master/tap14.md) for
+TUF.
+
+Verifiers can differentiate between the
+[old](https://github.com/in-toto/docs/blob/master/in-toto-spec.md#42-file-formats-general-principles)
+and new envelope format by detecting the presence of the `payload` field (new
+format) vs `signed` field (old format).
+
+[Canonical JSON]: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Canonical_JSON
+[in-toto]: https://in-toto.io
+[JWS]: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7515
+[PASETO]: https://github.com/paragonie/paseto/blob/master/docs/01-Protocol-Versions/Version2.md#sig
+[TUF]: https://theupdateframework.io

envelope.md

@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
+# signing-spec Envelope
+
+March 03, 2021
+
+Version 0.1.0
+
+This document describes the recommended data structure for storing signing-spec
+signatures, which we call the "JSON Envelope". For the protocol/algorithm, see
+[Protocol](protocol.md).
+
+## Standard JSON envelope
+
+The standard data structure for storing a signed message is a JSON message of
+the following form, called the "JSON envelope":
+
+```json
+{
+  "payload": "<Base64(SERIALIZED_BODY)>",
+  "payloadType": "<PAYLOAD_TYPE>",
+  "signatures": [{
+    "keyid": "<KEYID>",
+    "sig": "<Base64(SIGNATURE)>"
+  }]
+}
+```
+
+See [Protocol](protocol.md) for a definition of parameters and functions.
+
+Empty fields may be omitted. [Multiple signatures](#multiple-signatures) are
+allowed.
+
+Base64() is [Base64 encoding](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4648), transforming
+a byte sequence to a unicode string. Either standard or URL-safe encoding is
+allowed.
+
+### Multiple signatures
+
+An envelope may have more than one signature, which is equivalent to separate
+envelopes with individual signatures.
+
+```json
+{
+  "payload": "<Base64(SERIALIZED_BODY)>",
+  "payloadType": "<PAYLOAD_TYPE>",
+  "signatures": [{
+      "keyid": "<KEYID_1>",
+      "sig": "<SIG_1>"
+    }, {
+      "keyid": "<KEYID_2>",
+      "sig": "<SIG_2>"
+  }]
+}
+```
+
+## Other data structures
+
+The standard envelope is JSON message with an explicit `payloadType`.
+Optionally, applications may encode the signed message in other methods without
+invalidating the signature:
+
+-   An encoding other than JSON, such as CBOR or protobuf.
+-   Use a default `payloadType` if omitted and/or code `payloadType` as a
+    shorter string or enum.
+
+At this point we do not standardize any other encoding. If a need arises, we may
+do so in the future.