Do we need sha3-512 in the vocabulary tables?

[iherman]

The vocabulary tables in Appendix B2 include a reference hash value for sha256 and for sha3-512. The problem is that, at least at this moment, the availability of sha3-512 is still patchy, which means that the instructions in the paragraph underneath the table fail in some? (many?) cases. (Anecdotally, I use a 3 year old MacBook Pro, with the latest verion of the OS, ie, Sonoma 14.3.1, and the openssl command fails on sha3. I have to install via brew and take some extra steps to get the right versions of openssl.)

Personally, I am not sure why having sha3-512 is necessary for what it is used for here.

[iherman]

Note that if we make a change on this, similar changes ought to be done in the DI spec.

[msporny]

Yep, just found the issue on a version of openssl that modern Macs ship... turns out that a number of openssl options aren't universally supported for anything other than sha2-256.

Agree that anything more than sha2-256 is unnecessary. No other production system at the moment, including ones approved for high security governmental use, require more than sha2-256.

Let's just remove the sha3 hashes. The file is version controlled, is date-stamped, will be static at W3C, and it will have a sha2-256 hash. That is more than enough security around the vocabulary and context files.

[iherman]

The issue was discussed in a meeting on 2024-03-13

• no resolutions were taken

View the transcript

4.6. Do we need sha3-512 in the vocabulary tables? (issue vc-data-model#1455)

See github issue vc-data-model#1455.

Manu Sporny: add crypto hashes to files referred to. Disagreement on whether SHA-256 is enough, then folks wanted SHA-384 then why not 512.
… then why not a CLI that everyone has, then OpenSSL, but different on different platforms.
… NIST guidelines, PQ in year 2035, SHA-256 good until 2035.

Steve McCown: FYI, Apple us launching PQ for iMessages in the near term: https://security.apple.com/blog/imessage-pq3/.

Manu Sporny: so we have confirmation from NIST, so we should backoff multiple hashes.
… should change all hashes across the board for SHA2-256.

Ivan Herman: OpenSSL on Mac doesn't have SHA-3. It is possible to install alternative that has sha3, but a bit tricky... Not everyone will do that...

Dave Longley: i.e., no wide, default support for sha3.

Ivan Herman: happy to write a PR if group agrees. Only when PR 1454 is merged. Don't want merge conflicts.
… will write PR for DI spec to have everything aligned.

Joe Andrieu: disagree, we shouldn't get rid of extensibility.

Manu Sporny: to be clear a maintenance group can publish at any time. If SHA-256 is broken, many things would need to be rev'd.
… many things more important that hashes of vocabulary files. This is different from the cryptography used in ECDSA, EDDSA, etc...
… This is for vocabulary files.

Michael Jones: If SHA-256 is broken, then every piece of software that uses crypto will be broken.

Manu Sporny: Completely agree with Mike Jones... "It'll be a frikkin' big deal" <-- YES! :).

Dave Longley: +1 to Mike.

Brent Zundel: closing meeting for today, not meeting next week. Thanks.

---

[iherman]

PR #1459 has been raised. If that is accepted and merged, this issue can be closed.

[TallTed]

Dotting an I, PR #1459 has been merged, closing this.

[iherman]

The issue was discussed in a meeting on 2024-03-27

• no resolutions were taken

View the transcript

3.3. Do we need sha3-512 in the vocabulary tables? (issue vc-data-model#1455)

See github issue vc-data-model#1455.

Brent Zundel: this issue can be closed.