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Public Key Publishing This document specifies how an entity may publish its public keys over XMPP. &LEGALNOTICE; 0189 Experimental Standards Track Standards JIG XMPP Core XEP-0060 XEP-0163 W3C XML Signature None None pubkeys &ianpaterson; 0.2 2006-09-29 ip

Replaced pubkey and key elements with the KeyInfo element defined in W3C XML Signature

 0.1 2006-07-18 ip

Initial version.

This document defines different methods an entity may use for publishing its long-term public keys:

An entity MAY have multiple public keys with different formats, signatures, algorithms, strengths and expiry dates. Each client used by a user may use different keys.

An entity SHOULD use &xep0163; to publish all its long-term public keys via its own server.

If the pubkeys PEP node does not exist already then the entity MUST create it first. In this case, the entity SHOULD specify that the keys will only be pushed to subscribers whenever new keys are published (i.e. not when subscribers become newly available or when a new subscription is created). If the user wants to control access to his/her identity (see Security Considerations) then the entity MUST also specify an appropriate access model other than "Open".

http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub#node_config ]]>

Once the publishing node has been created, the entity can update the keys at any time. Each public key MUST be wrapped in a <KeyInfo/> element as specified in &w3xmlsig;. Each <KeyInfo/> element MUST contain a <KeyName/> element with a unique (for the user) name to allow the key to be referenced by other protocols. All the <KeyInfo/> elements MUST be wrapped in a single <pubkeys/> element.

Note: Any change to the list of keys requires all keys to be republished. So clients SHOULD take care to request (see third example below) and then include all keys for the JID that were published previously by other clients (unless the keys have expired). The keys are long-term so they will only be republished infrequently.

julietRSAkey1 ... AQAB julietDSAkey1

...

......... julietX509cert1 CN=TAMURA Kent, OU=TRL, O=IBM, L=Yamato-shi, ST=Kanagawa, C=JP 12345678 31d97bd7 Subject of Certificate B ... ... ... julietPGPkey1 ... ... ]]> julietRSAkey1 ... julietDSAkey1 ... julietX509cert1 ... julietPGPkey1 ...
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Note: The stanza containing the event notification (see example above) MAY also include 'replyto' data (as specified by the &xep0033; protocol) to provide an explicit association between the published data and the resource that published it.

]]> julietRSAkey1 ... julietDSAkey1 ... julietX509cert1 ... julietPGPkey1 ... ]]>

If an entity wishes to request the public keys of another entity and it cannot access the keys via Personal Eventing via Pubsub, then the entity MAY send an IQ to the other entity:

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The other entity MUST make a careful access control decision before returning only those public keys for which it holds the corresponding private key (not necessarily the full list of keys being published via Personal Eventing via Pubsub):

julietRSAkey1 ... julietX509cert1 ... ]]>

If the receiving entity decides not to return the public keys, it MUST return an IQ error, which SHOULD be &unavailable; (to avoid divulging presence to unauthorized entities), but MAY be some other appropriate error, such as &forbidden; or ¬allowed;:

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The reliable association between a user or entity and its public keys is beyond the scope of this document. However, it is RECOMMENDED that each client maintains its own secure library of the public keys (or the "fingerprints" of the keys) it associates with other users (not necessarily JIDs).

Whenever public keys are published an identity is typically associated with a JID. Although the public keys are public information, it may be critically important for the user of the JID to keep his identity secret from all but a few specified people. Implementors MUST take great care to ensure the identity of the user of a JID is never divulged to anyone except the entities who have been permitted by the user to access the public key.

This document requires no interaction with &IANA;.

The ®ISTRAR; shall add 'http://jabber.org/protocol/pubkeys' to its registry of protocol namespaces.

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