To me, the crucial phrase in XMLENC is
"Without this information, the decryptor will be unable to automatically
restore the XML document to its original cleartext form."
There is *never* a case with EncryptedHeader where the decryptor would
be unable to restore the cleartext due to a missing Type attribute.
Gudge
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Prateek Mishra [mailto:]
> Sent: 06 September 2005 14:32
> To:
> Cc: Martin Gudgin
> Subject: Re: [wss] WSS 1.1 Interop report
>
> Martin Gudgin wrote:
> [quote]
>
> >Here is the interop report for the recent OASIS WSS 1.1
> Interop event.
> >
> >4 parties participated. Interop was achieved between all 4 parties.
> >
> >The following issues arose;
> >
> >1. Lines 1713-1741 (Section 9.4.4) define processing rules for
> >wsse11:EncryptedHeader. During interop testing it was identified that
> >some implementations expected
> >wsse11:EncryptedHeader/xenc:EncryptedData/@Type to be present while
> >other implementations did not emit such an attribute. Given
> that neither
> >#Element nor #Content match the semantics of
> wsse11:EncryptedHeader we
> >propose that the following text be added to section 9.4.4;
> >
> > "wsse11:EncryptedHeader/xenc:EncryptedData elements SHOULD NOT
> >carry a Type attribute. Implementations MUST process
> >wsse11:EncryptedHeader/xenc:EncryptedData elements in the
> absence of a
> >Type attribute"
> >
> >Note: 3 of the 4 parties to the interop support the above proposal.
> >
> >
> >
> [/quote]
>
> We are concerned that this proposed change breaks the following text
> from XML -ENC:
>
> [quote - Section 3.1: http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlenc-core/ ]
> |Type| is an optional attribute identifying type information
> about the
> plaintext form of the encrypted content. While optional, this
> specification takes advantage of it for mandatory processing
> described
> in Processing Rules: Decryption <#sec-Processing-Decryption> (section
> 4.2). If the |EncryptedData| element contains data of |Type|
> 'element'
> or element 'content', and replaces that data in an XML
> document context,
> it is strongly recommended the |Type| attribute be provided. Without
> this information, the decryptor will be unable to
> automatically restore
> the XML document to its original cleartext form.
> [\quote]
>
> Our reading of WSS and XML-ENC suggests that we should retain
> use of the
> Type attribute with value set to "element".
>
> - prateek
>
>
