RFR 8181841: A TSA server returns timestamp with precision higher than milliseconds

[Weijun Wang]

Hi Michael

I cannot access ISO 8601 but according to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeneralizedTime:

> A GeneralizedTime is a time format in the ASN.1 notation. It consists
> of a string value representing the calendar date, as defined in ISO
> 8601, a time of day with an optional fractional seconds element and
> the optional local time differential factor as defined in ISO 8601.
> 
> In contrast to the UTCTime class of ASN.1 the GeneralizedTime uses a
> four-digit representation of the year to avoid possible ambiguity.
> Another difference is the possibility to encode time information of
> any wanted precision via the fractional seconds element.

So my understanding is that ISO 8601 is only for "the optional local 
time differential factor", and it does mention "any wanted precision".

In fact, I tried to generate a DER encoding of a GeneralizedTime with a 
long fractional part and "openssl asn1parse" accepts it and displays all 
the digits.

I can read X.680 but it does not mention any restriction.

Thanks
Max

On 06/13/2017 01:07 AM, Michael StJohns wrote
> The actual bound in GeneralizedTime is 6 digits of fractional time 
> (according to ISO 8601) or 25 characters.  That should still continue
> to be enforced.
>