Speaking as one of the editors but not one that was not involved in these
aforementioned initial contacts, I think there might have been some
miscommunication or misunderstanding here.

The intent in the context of this draft has long been (for at least a year
and 10 revisions) to not prohibit the use of HMAC (or anything other than
"none") JWS signing algorithms. But not to attempt to define the pieces
like the KDF and key exchange that would be needed to make HMAC work kinda
like an asymmetric signature. My stance has been that the proper layer for
that is in the presentation request/response protocol (such as OpenID4VP).
Or maybe not the proper layer exactly but the most pragmatic layer given
the totality of circumstances. As mentioned in a comment on that #574
<https://github.com/oauth-wg/oauth-selective-disclosure-jwt/issues/574#issuecomment-2877132922>
issue, Paul believes it would be more appropriate at the JWS algorithm
layer. That's certainly a reasonable perspective but would almost certainly
still need some pieces spelled out at the presentation protocol layer.
Having said that, I don't think much or even any allowance or guidance
exits in the presentation request/response protocol layer that I'm familiar
with, OpenID4VP, to facilitate anything like this. To the extent that it's
as important as implied here, I'd suggest some of the energy behind this be
directed there (while being aware that that document is in the latter
stages of the OIDF process).

As Danial mentioned also in a comment on that issue #574
<https://github.com/oauth-wg/oauth-selective-disclosure-jwt/issues/574#issuecomment-2876517065>
we use the term "signing" in SD-JWT to mean HMAC as well as typical
asymmetric signatures.  Even though it's not technically correct, it
follows the terminology of JWS/JWT that encompass MACs as JSON Web
Signatures. As far as I know, there is no normative language preventing or
prohibiting the use of HMAC-based algorithms. However, if there are
concrete suggestions to improve specific language in the draft, we can
certainly consider incorporating clarifications or improvements.

Lastly please note that IESG Balloting has already begun on this draft. So
the bar for changes at this point, without incurring significant process
intervention anyway, is quite high.



On Tue, May 13, 2025 at 5:53 AM Stefan Santesson <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> We just submitted the following issue on JD JWT GitHub page detailing
> this request.
>
> https://github.com/oauth-wg/oauth-selective-disclosure-jwt/issues/574
>
> Providing the final stage of this document, we would only do this
> because it is very important, is non breaking and our initial contacts
> with editors suggests that this could be accepted.
>
> --
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> Stefan Santesson
>
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