A JSON Web Signature (abbreviated JWS) is an
IETF
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements and ...
-proposed standard () for
signing arbitrary data. This is used as the basis for a variety of web-based technologies including
JSON Web Token
JSON Web Token (JWT, pronounced , same as the word "jot") is a proposed Internet standard for creating data with optional signature and/or optional encryption whose payload holds JSON that asserts some number of claims. The tokens are signed ei ...
.
Purpose
JWS is a way to ensure integrity of information in a highly
serializable, machine-readable format. That means that it is information, along with proof that the information hasn't changed since being signed. It can be used for sending information from one web site to another, and is especially aimed at communications on the web. It even contains a compact form optimized for applications like
URI Uri may refer to:
Places
* Canton of Uri, a canton in Switzerland
* Úri, a village and commune in Hungary
* Uri, Iran, a village in East Azerbaijan Province
* Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, a town in India
* Uri (island), an island off Malakula Isla ...
query parameters.
Examples
Web commerce
JWS can be used for applications in which digitally signed information must be sent in a machine-readable format, such as
e-commerce
E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain mana ...
. For example, say a user named Bob is browsing widget prices on a web site (widgets.com), and wishes to get a quote on one of them. Then widgets.com could provide Bob with a JWS object containing all relevant information about the widget, including the price, then sign it using their private key. Then Bob would have a
non-repudiable price quote for the product.
Access to third-party resources
Maybe Widgets.com and WidgetStorage.com have a deal in which WidgetStorage.com will accept coupons from Widgets.com in exchange for traffic. Widgets.com could issue JWS giving Bob a 10% discount on the WidgetStorage.com site. Again, because the data is signed, WidgetStorage can know that Widgets.com emitted this. If the data was not signed, then Bob could change his discount to 50% and no one would know just from looking at the data.
Limitations
JWS is one of the standards in the JOSE series
and is meant to be used in combination with them. For example, for encryption
JSON Web Encryption (JWE) is supposed to be used in conjunction.
As of 2015, JWS was a proposed standard, and was part of several other IETF draft standards, and there was code available on the web to implement the draft standard.
References
{{Data exchange
Computer access control
Internet Standards
JSON