Subject: [Trans] Seeking feedback: Simplification of get-entries in 6962-bis and associated data structures

From: Eran Messeri <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 May 2017 16:37:29 +0100

I'm looking for feedback on the following proposal:
- Make 'get-entries' in 6962-bis return the submission as-is (i.e., a JSON
object with the submitted certificate / precertificate and associated
chain).
- Remove the  X509ChainEntry and  PrecertChainEntryV2 structures, whose
sole use is a container for the submission that can be put in a TransItem.

This proposal has the following benefits:
- The get-entries output mirrors the submission input, making it easier to
reason about.
- Parsing the output of get-entries would only require JSON & base64
decoding, not TLS decoding anything: The whole purpose behind CT logs is
storing certificates, this change makes it easier to parse them.
- The spec would be simpler, removing two data structures which aren't
really used in the log's internal structure, making it clearer what's up to
the implementation to decide and what's required by the spec.

This would resolve issues 190 <https://trac.ietf.org/trac/trans/ticket/190>
 and 176 <https://trac.ietf.org/trac/trans/ticket/176>.

A preview of the change could be found here
<https://github.com/google/certificate-transparency-rfcs/pull/256>.

Thanks,
Eran