Re: [cti] RE: CTI TC Timestamps - Proposed: Adopt the ISO 8601 <start>/<end> construct.

From
Jason Keirstead <>
Date
2016-02-02T18:09:13+00:00
ID
Thread
Re: [cti] RE: CTI TC Timestamps - Proposed: Adopt the ISO 8601 <start>/<end> construct.
Myself I would like to see a list of objects for which it is presumed ranges would be valid - to me, that would be the minority, not vice-versa.

Like I say - it totally fundamentally changes the way you have to write your software if you have to deal with time windows everywhere vs a discrete time. I think the use cases where time windows are needed should be clearly delineated. 

A time window in terms of how software is written is not the same as a timestamp with a confidence factor.

-
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 

"Barnum, Sean D." ---02/02/2016 02:04:37 PM---I definitely see your point for fields that MUST always be discrete. Maybe default to the general ti

From:        "Barnum, Sean D." <>
To:        Jason Keirstead/CanEast/IBM@IBMCA
Cc:        Mark Davidson <>, "Wunder, John A." <>, OASIS CTI TC Discussion List <>
Date:        02/02/2016 02:04 PM
Subject:        Re: [cti] RE: CTI TC Timestamps - Proposed: Adopt the ISO 8601 <start>/<end> construct.
Sent by:        <>

I definitely see your point for fields that MUST always be discrete.

Maybe default to the general timestamp and for fields that MUST be discrete define a more limited version without ranges?

Sean

From: <> on behalf of Jason Keirstead <>
Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 at 12:54 PM
To: "Barnum, Sean D." <>
Cc: Mark Davidson <>, John Wunder <>, OASIS CTI TC Discussion List <>
Subject: Re: [cti] RE: CTI TC Timestamps - Proposed: Adopt the ISO 8601 <start>/<end> construct.

So what happens if there is a feild where a discrete timestamp is the only thing that makes sense, but the producer puts a range in it, and everyone who consumes it does not process it properly as a result...? That is my main issue with this being a format that can be used in any timestamp field. A piece of software needs to know how they should parse that field... as a range or not a range... because that has very broad ramifications.

-
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 

"Barnum, Sean D." ---02/02/2016 01:42:46 PM---My understanding is that "2015-03-01T13:00:00Z” would explicitly be a discrete time and "2015-03-01T

From: "Barnum, Sean D." <>
To: Mark Davidson <>, "Wunder, John A." <>, OASIS CTI TC Discussion List <>
Date: 02/02/2016 01:42 PM
Subject: Re: [cti] RE: CTI TC Timestamps - Proposed: Adopt the ISO 8601 <start>/<end> construct.
Sent by: <>

My understanding is that "2015-03-01T13:00:00Z” would explicitly be a discrete time and "2015-03-01T13:00:00Z/” would indicate an unbounded range starting at that time. 
The presence of the “/“ makes it explicitly a range.
By my understanding there are really only 4 variations here: 
"2015-03-01T13:00:00Z” : discrete time
"2015-03-01T13:00:00Z/” : unbounded time range starting at "2015-03-01T13:00:00Z”
“/2015-03-01T13:00:00Z” : unbounded time range ending at "2015-03-01T13:00:00Z”
"2015-03-01T13:00:00Z/2015-03-01T14:00:00Z” : bounded time range between "2015-03-01T13:00:00Z” and "2015-03-01T14:00:00Z” (this example would be the same as saying "2015-03-01T13:00:00Z” with a precision=“hour”)This really does not sound complex to me to parse or understand.

I would think quite a few time fields do not necessarily fall as always discrete or always a range. I would say this is likely true of the majority of incident related timestamps.
For example, as part of an incident investigation you discover that a registry key on a system was changed to a particular value. If you had an endpoint monitoring tool in place noticing events like registry key changes you would likely assert a discrete timestamp for when the change occurred. In other (most from what I have seen operationally) cases you don’t have visibility to determine exactly when the change was made but rather you have a point in time slice that shows the new value and a previous point in time slice that shows the old value so you know that the change occurred sometime in between.
From what I have heard from operations, IR and intel folks this sort of thing where a time may be discrete and may be a range is very common.

Pat, please feel free to correct me if my understanding is wrong.

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