Re: [cti-stix] Unicode, strings, and STIX

We had some more discussion of this on the working call (very brief, at the very end) and the conversation seems to have shifted back to just removing all of the normative statements regarding
  length.



So, at this point, let’s do this:



1.

Are there any objections to removing all of the normative statements regarding string field lengths from the specification? Please respond to this e-mail on the list if you object.

2.

Assuming we hear objections, let’s open a ballot on the topic. I’ll work with JMG and others to get the ballot text and make the motion to open it.



John
From:

<> on behalf of "Jordan, Bret" <>
Date:  Friday, June 3, 2016 at 2:33 PM
To:  Mark Davidson <>
Cc:  Jason Keirstead <>, John-Mark Gurney <>, "" <>, Terry MacDonald <>, Rich Piazza <>, ""
  <>
Subject:  Re: [cti-stix] Unicode, strings, and STIX



  Based on a conversation we have had on slack, I would propose some text like this:





  Title fields SHOULD be between 1-256 characters.  Title fields MAY be longer than 256 characters.  For non-English languages you SHOULD measure characters as code-points.







Thanks,



Bret







Bret Jordan CISSP

Director of Security Architecture and Standards
Office of the CTO

Blue Coat Systems

PGP Fingerprint: 63B4 FC53 680A 6B7D 1447  F2C0 74F8 ACAE 7415 0050

"Without cryptography vihv vivc ce xhrnrw, however, the only thing that can not be unscrambled is an egg."



  On Jun 3, 2016, at 08:57, Mark Davidson < 
> wrote:



If we have no limits and a Soltra Edge user creates a 100GB title and $compatible-product falls over – how does that get resolved? If I was being snotty I would
  say “well, $compatible-product isn’t fully standards compliant”, even though I think that would be against the spirit of the spec.



I do think we should specify limits somehow. Either through a required minimum, a recommended maximum, or something. IMO, the purpose is to give implementers _ something _
  to work with without having to make wild guesses about what will be available in the ecosystem. The ability to specify the maximum (e.g., code points, graphemes, and other things I don’t understand well) is IMO a separate conversation.



I think step #1 is whether we as a group think specifying limits (one way or another) make sense. I would in general say yes, and the arguments to the contrary
  haven’t swayed me. However, if we don’t want limits, we should just have a piece of informative text stating that there are no limits and why we chose that.



Thank you.

-Mark
From:
<  
>
  on behalf of Jason Keirstead <  
>
Date:    Friday, June 3, 2016 at 8:00 AM
To:    "Jordan, Bret" <  
>
Cc:    John-Mark Gurney <    >, "    "
  <    >, Terry MacDonald <    >, Rich Piazza <    >,
  "    " <  
>
Subject:    Re: [cti-stix] Unicode, strings, and STIX



 My question is - what are you supposed to do with that information?

 - You can't take that limit and turn it into a byte limit for buffer purposes - it is not possible. You can't even guess because it depends both on the character encoding as well as the language. Since the character encoding is not part of STIX but part of
  the serialization binding, trying to figure out the number of bytes a given number of code points will consume is a bit of a fools errand.

 - You also can't take that limit and use it in your GUI in any way, because you can't enforce length limits of input fields based on code points - you have to do it based on graphemes/glyphs.

 So.. what are people planning to use this limit for?

 -
 Jason Keirstead
 STSM, Product Architect, Security Intelligence, IBM Security Systems

www.ibm.com/security


www.securityintelligence.com

 Without data, all you are is just another person with an opinion - Unknown

 <image001.gif> "Jordan, Bret" ---06/02/2016 08:35:22 PM---To me it just feels wrong or dirty to not have some sort of guidance or some sort of upper limit. I
From:
"Jordan, Bret" <  
>
To:
John-Mark Gurney <    >, "    "
  <  
>
Cc:
Jason Keirstead/CanEast/IBM@IBMCA, Terry MacDonald <    >,
  Rich Piazza <    >, "    " <  
>
Date:
06/02/2016 08:35 PM
Subject:
Re: [cti-stix] Unicode, strings, and STIX
  Sent by:
<  
>

  To me it just feels wrong or dirty to not have some sort of guidance or some sort of upper limit. I am not saying the lengths have to be really short.... We could say a title can have up to 256 code points or 512 code points,
  but the fact is, we should define something, I think...

  I have asked Eric, our resident academic to chime in, and he will give us some guidance hopefully tomorrow.

  Thanks,

  Bret

Bret Jordan CISSP
  Director of Security Architecture and Standards
Office of the CTO
  Blue Coat Systems
  PGP Fingerprint: 63B4 FC53 680A 6B7D 1447 F2C0 74F8 ACAE 7415 0050
  "Without cryptography vihv vivc ce xhrnrw, however, the only thing that can not be unscrambled is an egg."

 [attachment "signature.asc" deleted by Jason Keirstead/CanEast/IBM]