Hi Jan,
That was a good point to include this in [Signature Protection]
property "The
primary signature element is
not required to be encrypted if the value is ‘true’ when there is
nothing else in the message that is encrypted".
However, I have a question here: Instead of saying "nothing else in the
message", shouldn't we be more specific and say:
"The
primary signature element is
not required to be encrypted if the value is ‘true’ when there is
nothing in the message that is covered by this
signature encrypted".
Let us take the following case:
<soap:Envelope>
<soap:Body>
<abc Id="abc">...</abc>
<xyz Id="xyz">...</xyz>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
If you encrypt <abc>, and sign <xyz>, you create a signature
<ds:Signature>
<ds:Reference URI="#xyz"/>
</ds:Signature>
Now going by the original statement in the spec, it would be ok to
encrypt this signature whereas the element it covers is still left in
the clear. In this case also IMO, there is no significant gain in the
security.
If however, abc is signed using this primary signature, then encrypted,
and then if this signature was confidentiality protected, it would be
more meaningful.
So IMO, the primary signature element should be protected (when the
property is true of course) when it covers at least something which is
encrypted, and not anything in the message which is encrypted which I
infer from the original clause.
Please share your thoughts.
Thanks
Aditya
