Compression Dictionary Transport
draft-ietf-httpbis-compression-dictionary-19

HTTP                                                      P. Meenan, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                Google LLC
Intended status: Standards Track                           Y. Weiss, Ed.
Expires: 1 March 2025                                        Shopify Inc
                                                          28 August 2024

                    Compression Dictionary Transport
              draft-ietf-httpbis-compression-dictionary-19

Abstract

   This document specifies a mechanism for dictionary-based compression
   in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).  By utilizing this
   technique, clients and servers can reduce the size of transmitted
   data, leading to improved performance and reduced bandwidth
   consumption.  This document extends existing HTTP compression methods
   and provides guidelines for the delivery and use of compression
   dictionaries within the HTTP protocol.

About This Document

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   Status information for this document may be found at
   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-httpbis-compression-
   dictionary/.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the HTTP Working Group
   mailing list (mailto:[email protected]), which is archived at
   https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/.  Working Group
   information can be found at https://httpwg.org/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/httpwg/http-extensions/labels/compression-
   dictionary.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.1.  Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
       1.1.1.  Version Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
       1.1.2.  Common Content  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     1.2.  Notational Conventions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   2.  Dictionary Negotiation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     2.1.  Use-As-Dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       2.1.1.  match . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       2.1.2.  match-dest  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       2.1.3.  id  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       2.1.4.  type  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       2.1.5.  Examples  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     2.2.  Available-Dictionary  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       2.2.1.  Dictionary freshness requirement  . . . . . . . . . .   9
       2.2.2.  Dictionary URL matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       2.2.3.  Multiple matching dictionaries  . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     2.3.  Dictionary-ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   3.  The 'compression-dictionary' Link Relation Type . . . . . . .  11
   4.  Dictionary-Compressed Brotli  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   5.  Dictionary-Compressed Zstandard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   6.  Negotiating the content encoding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     6.1.  Accept-Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     6.2.  Content-Encoding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     7.1.  Content Encoding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14

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     7.2.  Header Field Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     7.3.  Link Relation Registration  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   8.  Compatibility Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   9.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     9.1.  Changing content  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     9.2.  Reading content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     9.3.  Security Mitigations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
       9.3.1.  Cross-origin protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
       9.3.2.  Response readability  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
       9.3.3.  Server Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   10. Privacy Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   11. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     11.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     11.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20

1.  Introduction

   This specification defines a mechanism for using designated [HTTP]
   responses as an external dictionary for future HTTP responses for
   compression schemes that support using external dictionaries (e.g.,
   Brotli [RFC7932] and Zstandard [RFC8878]).

   This document describes the HTTP headers used for negotiating
   dictionary usage and registers content encoding values for
   compressing with Brotli and Zstandard using a negotiated dictionary.

   The negotiation of dictionary usage leverages HTTP's content
   negotiation (see Section 12 of [HTTP]) and is usable with all
   versions of HTTP.

1.1.  Use Cases

   Any HTTP response can be specified to be used as a compression
   dictionary for future HTTP requests which provides a lot of
   flexibility.  There are two common use cases that are seen
   frequently:

1.1.1.  Version Upgrade

   Using a previous version of a resource as a dictionary for a newer
   version enables delivery of a delta-compressed version of the
   changes, usually resulting in significantly smaller responses than
   can be achieved by compression alone.

   For example:

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   Client                                        Server
   |                                                  |
   | GET /app.v1.js                                   |
   |------------------------------------------------->|
   |                                                  |
   |     200 OK                                       |
   |     Use-As-Dictionary: match="/app*js"           |
   |     <full app.v1.js resource - 100KB compressed> |
   |<-------------------------------------------------|
   |                                                  |

   Some time later ...

   Client                                        Server
   |                                                  |
   | GET /app.v2.js                                   |
   | Available-Dictionary: :pZGm1A...2a2fFG4=:        |
   | Accept-Encoding: gzip, br, zstd, dcb, dcz        |
   |------------------------------------------------->|
   |                                                  |
   |      200 OK                                      |
   |      Content-Encoding: dcb                       |
   |      <delta-compressed app.v2.js resource - 1KB> |
   |<-------------------------------------------------|
   |                                                  |

                     Figure 1: Version Upgrade Example

1.1.2.  Common Content

   If several resources share common patterns in their responses then it
   can be useful to reference an external dictionary that contains those
   common patterns, effectively compressing them out of the responses.
   Some examples of this are common template HTML for similar pages
   across a site and common keys and values in API calls.

   For example:

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   Client                                          Server
   |                                                    |
   | GET /index.html                                    |
   |--------------------------------------------------->|
   |                                                    |
   |     200 OK                                         |
   |     Link: <.../dict>; rel="compression-dictionary" |
   |     <full index.html resource - 100KB compressed>  |
   |<---------------------------------------------------|
   |                                                    |
   | GET /dict                                          |
   |--------------------------------------------------->|
   |                                                    |
   |                  200 OK                            |
   |                  Use-As-Dictionary: match="/*html" |
   |<---------------------------------------------------|
   |                                                    |

   Some time later ...

   Client                                          Server
   |                                                    |
   | GET /page2.html                                    |
   | Available-Dictionary: :pZGm1A...2a2fFG4=:          |
   | Accept-Encoding: gzip, br, zstd, dcb, dcz          |
   |--------------------------------------------------->|
   |                                                    |
   |      200 OK                                        |
   |      Content-Encoding: dcb                         |
   |      <delta-compressed page2.html resource - 10KB> |
   |<---------------------------------------------------|
   |                                                    |

                      Figure 2: Common Content Example

1.2.  Notational Conventions

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
   BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

   This document uses the following terminology from Section 3 of
   [STRUCTURED-FIELDS] to specify syntax and parsing: Dictionary,
   String, Inner List, Token, and Byte Sequence.

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   This document uses the line folding strategies described in
   [FOLDING].

   This document also uses terminology from [HTTP] and [HTTP-CACHING].

2.  Dictionary Negotiation

2.1.  Use-As-Dictionary

   When responding to a HTTP Request, a server can advertise that the
   response can be used as a dictionary for future requests for URLs
   that match the rules specified in the Use-As-Dictionary response
   header.

   The Use-As-Dictionary response header is a Structured Field
   [STRUCTURED-FIELDS] Dictionary with values for "match", "match-dest",
   "id", and "type".

2.1.1.  match

   The "match" value of the Use-As-Dictionary header is a String value
   that provides the URL Pattern to use for request matching (see
   [URLPATTERN]).

   The URL Pattern used for matching does not support using regular
   expressions.

   The following algorithm is used to validate that a given String value
   is a valid URL Pattern that does not use regular expressions and is
   for the same Origin (Section 4.3.1 of [HTTP]) as the dictionary.  It
   will return TRUE for a valid match pattern and FALSE for an invalid
   pattern that MUST NOT be used:

   1.  Let MATCH be the value of "match" for the given dictionary.

   2.  Let URL be the URL of the dictionary request.

   3.  Let PATTERN be a URL pattern created by running the steps to
       create a URL pattern by setting input=MATCH, and baseURL=URL (see
       Part create of [URLPATTERN]).

   4.  If the result of running the "has regexp groups" steps for
       PATTERN returns TRUE then return FALSE (see Part has regexp
       groups of [URLPATTERN]).

   5.  Return TRUE.

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   The "match" value is required and MUST be included in the Use-As-
   Dictionary response header for the dictionary to be considered valid.

   Operating at the HTTP-level, the specified match patterns will
   operate on the percent-encoded version of the URL path (see Section 2
   of [URL]).

   For example the URL "http://www.example.com/düsseldorf" would be
   encoded as "http://www.example.com/d%C3%BCsseldorf" and a relevant
   match pattern would be:

   Use-As-Dictionary: match="/d%C3%BCsseldorf"

2.1.2.  match-dest

   The "match-dest" value of the Use-As-Dictionary header is an Inner
   List of String values that provides a list of Fetch request
   destinations for the dictionary to match (see Part RequestDestination
   of [FETCH]).

   An empty list for "match-dest" MUST match all destinations.

   For clients that do not support request destinations, the client MUST
   treat it as an empty list and match all destinations.

   The "match-dest" value is optional and defaults to an empty list.

2.1.3.  id

   The "id" value of the Use-As-Dictionary header is a String value that
   specifies a server identifier for the dictionary.  If an "id" value
   is present and has a string length longer than zero then it MUST be
   sent to the server in a "Dictionary-ID" request header when the
   client sends an "Available-Dictionary" request header for the same
   dictionary (see Section 2.2).

   The server identifier MUST be treated as an opaque string by the
   client.

   The server identifier MUST NOT be relied upon by the server to
   guarantee the contents of the dictionary.  The dictionary hash MUST
   be validated before use.

   The "id" value string length (after any decoding) supports up to 1024
   characters.

   The "id" value is optional and defaults to the empty string.

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2.1.4.  type

   The "type" value of the Use-As-Dictionary header is a Token value
   that describes the file format of the supplied dictionary.

   "raw" is defined as a dictionary format which represents an
   unformatted blob of bytes suitable for any compression scheme to use.

   If a client receives a dictionary with a type that it does not
   understand, it MUST NOT use the dictionary.

   The "type" value is optional and defaults to "raw".

2.1.5.  Examples

2.1.5.1.  Path Prefix

   A response that contained a response header:

   NOTE: '\' line wrapping per RFC 8792

   Use-As-Dictionary: \
     match="/product/*", match-dest=("document")

   Would specify matching any document request for a URL with a path
   prefix of /product/ on the same Origin (Section 4.3.1 of [HTTP]) as
   the original request.

2.1.5.2.  Versioned Directories

   A response that contained a response header:

   Use-As-Dictionary: match="/app/*/main.js"

   Would match any path that starts with "/app/" and ends with
   "/main.js".

2.2.  Available-Dictionary

   When a HTTP client makes a request for a resource for which it has an
   appropriate dictionary, it can add a "Available-Dictionary" request
   header to the request to indicate to the server that it has a
   dictionary available to use for compression.

   The "Available-Dictionary" request header is a Structured Field
   [STRUCTURED-FIELDS] Byte Sequence containing the [SHA-256] hash of
   the contents of a single available dictionary.

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   The client MUST only send a single "Available-Dictionary" request
   header with a single hash value for the best available match that it
   has available.

   For example:

   Available-Dictionary: :pZGm1Av0IEBKARczz7exkNYsZb8LzaMrV7J32a2fFG4=:

2.2.1.  Dictionary freshness requirement

   To be considered as a match, the dictionary resource MUST be either
   fresh [HTTP-CACHING] or allowed to be served stale (see eg
   [RFC5861]).

2.2.2.  Dictionary URL matching

   When a dictionary is stored as a result of a "Use-As-Dictionary"
   directive, it includes a "match" string and optional "match-dest"
   string that are used to match an outgoing request from a client to
   the available dictionaries.

   To see if an outbound request matches a given dictionary, the
   following algorithm will return TRUE for a successful match and FALSE
   for no-match:

   1.  If the current client supports request destinations and a "match-
       dest" string was provided with the dictionary:

       *  Let DEST be the value of "match-dest" for the given
          dictionary.

       *  Let REQUEST_DEST be the value of the destination for the
          current request.

       *  If DEST is not an empty list and if REQUEST_DEST is not in the
          DEST list of destinations, return FALSE

   2.  Let BASEURL be the URL of the dictionary request.

   3.  Let URL represent the URL of the outbound request being checked.

   4.  If the Origin of BASEURL and the Origin of URL are not the same,
       return FALSE (see Section 4.3.1 of [HTTP]).

   5.  Let MATCH be the value of "match" for the given dictionary.

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   6.  Let PATTERN be a URL pattern created by running the steps to
       create a URL pattern by setting input=MATCH, and baseURL=URL (see
       Part create of [URLPATTERN]).

   7.  Return the result of running the "match" steps on PATTERN with
       input=URL which will check for a match between the request URL
       and the supplied "match" string (see Part match of [URLPATTERN]).

2.2.3.  Multiple matching dictionaries

   When there are multiple dictionaries that match a given request URL,
   the client MUST pick a single dictionary using the following rules:

   1.  For clients that support request destinations, a dictionary that
       specifies and matches a "match-dest" takes precedence over a
       match that does not use a destination.

   2.  Given equivalent destination precedence, the dictionary with the
       longest "match" takes precedence.

   3.  Given equivalent destination and match length precedence, the
       most recently fetched dictionary takes precedence.

2.3.  Dictionary-ID

   When a HTTP client makes a request for a resource for which it has an
   appropriate dictionary and the dictionary was stored with a server-
   provided "id" in the Use-As-Dictionary response then the client MUST
   echo the stored "id" in a "Dictionary-ID" request header.

   The "Dictionary-ID" request header is a Structured Field
   [STRUCTURED-FIELDS] String of up to 1024 characters (after any
   decoding) and MUST be identical to the server-provided "id".

   For example, given a HTTP response that set a dictionary ID:

   Use-As-Dictionary: match="/app/*/main.js", id="dictionary-12345"

   A future request that matches the given dictionary will include both
   the hash and the ID:

   Available-Dictionary: :pZGm1Av0IEBKARczz7exkNYsZb8LzaMrV7J32a2fFG4=:
   Dictionary-ID: "dictionary-12345"

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3.  The 'compression-dictionary' Link Relation Type

   This specification defines the 'compression-dictionary' link relation
   type [WEB-LINKING] that provides a mechanism for a HTTP response to
   provide a URL for a compression dictionary that is related to, but
   not directly used by the current HTTP response.

   The 'compression-dictionary' link relation type indicates that
   fetching and caching the specified resource is likely to be
   beneficial for future requests.  The response to some of those future
   requests are likely to be able to use the indicated resource as a
   compression dictionary.

   Clients can fetch the provided resource at a time that they determine
   would be appropriate.

   The response to the fetch for the compression dictionary needs to
   include a "Use-As-Dictionary" and caching response headers for it to
   be usable as a compression dictionary.  The link relation only
   provides the mechanism for triggering the fetch of the dictionary.

   The following example shows a link to a resource at
   https://example.org/dict.dat that is expected to produce a
   compression dictionary:

   Link: <https://example.org/dict.dat>; rel="compression-dictionary"

4.  Dictionary-Compressed Brotli

   The "dcb" content encoding identifies a resource that is a
   "Dictionary-Compressed Brotli" stream.

   A "Dictionary-Compressed Brotli" stream has a fixed header that is
   followed by a Shared Brotli [SHARED-BROTLI] stream.  The header
   consists of a fixed 4-byte sequence and a 32-byte hash of the
   external dictionary that was used.  The Shared Brotli stream is
   created using the referenced external dictionary and a compression
   window that is at most 16 MB in size.

   The dictionary used for the "dcb" content encoding is a "raw"
   dictionary type as defined in Section 2.1.4 and is treated as a
   prefix dictionary as defined in section 9.2 of the Shared Brotli
   Compressed Data Format draft.  [SHARED-BROTLI]

   The 36-byte fixed header is as follows:

   Magic_Number:  4 fixed bytes: 0xff, 0x44, 0x43, 0x42.

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   SHA_256_Hash:  32 bytes.  SHA-256 hash digest of the dictionary
      [SHA-256].

   Clients that announce support for dcb content encoding MUST be able
   to decompress resources that were compressed with a window size of up
   to 16 MB.

   With Brotli compression, the full dictionary is available during
   compression and decompression independent of the compression window,
   allowing for delta-compression of resources larger than the
   compression window.

5.  Dictionary-Compressed Zstandard

   The "dcz" content encoding identifies a resource that is a
   "Dictionary-Compressed Zstandard" stream.

   A "Dictionary-Compressed Zstandard" stream is a binary stream that
   starts with a 40-byte fixed header and is followed by a Zstandard
   [RFC8878] stream of the response that has been compressed with an
   external dictionary.

   The dictionary used for the "dcz" content encoding is a "raw"
   dictionary type as defined in Section 2.1.4 and is treated as a raw
   dictionary as per section 5 of RFC 8878.

   The 40-byte header consists of a fixed 8-byte sequence followed by
   the 32-byte SHA-256 hash of the external dictionary that was used to
   compress the resource:

   Magic_Number:  8 fixed bytes: 0x5e, 0x2a, 0x4d, 0x18, 0x20, 0x00,
      0x00, 0x00.

   SHA_256_Hash:  32 bytes.  SHA-256 hash digest of the dictionary
      [SHA-256].

   The 40-byte header is a Zstandard skippable frame (little-endian
   0x184D2A5E) with a 32-byte length (little-endian 0x00000020) that is
   compatible with existing Zstandard decoders.

   Clients that announce support for dcz content encoding MUST be able
   to decompress resources that were compressed with a window size of at
   least 8 MB or 1.25 times the size of the dictionary, which ever is
   greater, up to a maximum of 128 MB.

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   The window size used will be encoded in the content (currently, this
   can be expressed in powers of two only) and it MUST be lower than
   this limit.  An implementation MAY treat a window size that exceeds
   the limit as a decoding error.

   With Zstandard compression, the full dictionary is available during
   compression and decompression until the size of the input exceeds the
   compression window.  Beyond that point the dictionary becomes
   unavailable.  Using a compression window that is 1.25 times the size
   of the dictionary allows for full delta compression of resources that
   have grown by 25% between releases while still giving the client
   control over the memory it will need to allocate for a given
   response.

6.  Negotiating the content encoding

   When a compression dictionary is available for use compressing the
   response to a given request, the encoding to be used is negotiated
   through the regular mechanism for negotiating content encoding in
   HTTP through the "Accept-Encoding" request header and "Content-
   Encoding" response header.

   The dictionary to use is negotiated separately and advertised in the
   "Available-Dictionary" request header.

6.1.  Accept-Encoding

   When a dictionary is available for use on a given request, and the
   client chooses to make dictionary-based content-encoding available,
   the client adds the dictionary-aware content encodings that it
   supports to the "Accept-Encoding" request header. e.g.:

   Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br, zstd, dcb, dcz

   When a client does not have a stored dictionary that matches the
   request, or chooses not to use one for the request, the client MUST
   NOT send its dictionary-aware content-encodings in the "Accept-
   Encoding" request header.

6.2.  Content-Encoding

   If a server supports one of the dictionary encodings advertised by
   the client and chooses to compress the content of the response using
   the dictionary that the client has advertised then it sets the
   "Content-Encoding" response header to the appropriate value for the
   algorithm selected. e.g.:

   Content-Encoding: dcb

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   If the response is cacheable, it MUST include a "Vary" header to
   prevent caches serving dictionary-compressed resources to clients
   that don't support them or serving the response compressed with the
   wrong dictionary:

   Vary: accept-encoding, available-dictionary

7.  IANA Considerations

7.1.  Content Encoding

   IANA is asked to enter the following into the "HTTP Content Coding
   Registry" registry maintained at <https://www.iana.org/assignments/
   http-parameters/http-parameters.xhtml>:

   *  Name: dcb

   *  Description: "Dictionary-Compressed Brotli" data format.

   *  Reference: This document

   *  Notes: Section 4

   IANA is asked to enter the following into the "HTTP Content Coding
   Registry" registry maintained at <https://www.iana.org/assignments/
   http-parameters/http-parameters.xhtml>:

   *  Name: dcz

   *  Description: "Dictionary-Compressed Zstandard" data format.

   *  Reference: This document

   *  Notes: Section 5

7.2.  Header Field Registration

   IANA is asked to update the "Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Field
   Name Registry" registry maintained at
   <https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-fields/http-fields.xhtml>
   according to the table below:

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    +======================+===========+==============================+
    | Field Name           | Status    | Reference                    |
    +======================+===========+==============================+
    | Use-As-Dictionary    | permanent | Section 2.1 of this document |
    +----------------------+-----------+------------------------------+
    | Available-Dictionary | permanent | Section 2.2 of this document |
    +----------------------+-----------+------------------------------+
    | Dictionary-ID        | permanent | Section 2.3 of this document |
    +----------------------+-----------+------------------------------+

                                  Table 1

7.3.  Link Relation Registration

   IANA is asked to update the "Link Relation Types" registry maintained
   at <https://www.iana.org/assignments/link-relations/link-
   relations.xhtml>:

   *  Relation Name: compression-dictionary

   *  Description: Refers to a compression dictionary used for content
      encoding.

   *  Reference: This document, Section 3

8.  Compatibility Considerations

   It is not unusual for there to be devices on the network path that
   intercept, inspect and process HTTP requests (web proxies, firewalls,
   intrusion detection systems, etc).  To minimize the risk of these
   devices incorrectly processing dictionary-compressed responses,
   compression dictionary transport MUST only be used in secure contexts
   (HTTPS).

9.  Security Considerations

   The security considerations for Brotli [RFC7932], Shared Brotli
   [SHARED-BROTLI] and Zstandard [RFC8878] apply to the dictionary-based
   versions of the respective algorithms.

9.1.  Changing content

   The dictionary must be treated with the same security precautions as
   the content, because a change to the dictionary can result in a
   change to the decompressed content.

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   The dictionary is validated using a SHA-256 hash of the content to
   make sure that the client and server are both using the same
   dictionary.  The strength of the SHA-256 hash algorithm isn't
   explicitly needed to counter attacks since the dictionary is being
   served from the same origin as the content.  That said, if a weakness
   is discovered in SHA-256 and it is determined that the dictionary
   negotiation should use a different hash algorithm, the "Use-As-
   Dictionary" response header can be extended to specify a different
   algorithm and the server would just ignore any "Available-Dictionary"
   requests that do not use the updated hash.

9.2.  Reading content

   The compression attacks in Section 2.6 of [RFC7457] show that it's a
   bad idea to compress data from mixed (e.g. public and private)
   sources -- the data sources include not only the compressed data but
   also the dictionaries.  For example, if you compress secret cookies
   using a public-data-only dictionary, you still leak information about
   the cookies.

   Not only can the dictionary reveal information about the compressed
   data, but vice versa, data compressed with the dictionary can reveal
   the contents of the dictionary when an adversary can control parts of
   data to compress and see the compressed size.  On the other hand, if
   the adversary can control the dictionary, the adversary can learn
   information about the compressed data.

9.3.  Security Mitigations

   If any of the mitigations do not pass, the client MUST drop the
   response and return an error.

9.3.1.  Cross-origin protection

   To make sure that a dictionary can only impact content from the same
   origin where the dictionary was served, the URL Pattern used for
   matching a dictionary to requests (Section 2.1.1) is guaranteed to be
   for the same origin that the dictionary is served from.

9.3.2.  Response readability

   For clients, like web browsers, that provide additional protection
   against the readability of the payload of a response and against user
   tracking, additional protections MUST be taken to make sure that the
   use of dictionary-based compression does not reveal information that
   would not otherwise be available.

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   In these cases, dictionary compression MUST only be used when both
   the dictionary and the compressed response are fully readable by the
   client.

   In browser terms, that means that both are either same-origin to the
   context they are being fetched from or that the response is cross-
   origin and passes the CORS check (see Part CORS check of [FETCH]).

9.3.3.  Server Responsibility

   As with any usage of compressed content in a secure context, a
   potential timing attack exists if the attacker can control any part
   of the dictionary, or if it can read the dictionary and control any
   part of the content being compressed, while performing multiple
   requests that vary the dictionary or injected content.  Under such an
   attack, the changing size or processing time of the response reveals
   information about the content, which might be sufficient to read the
   supposedly secure response.

   In general, a server can mitigate such attacks by preventing
   variations per request, as in preventing active use of multiple
   dictionaries for the same content, disabling compression when any
   portion of the content comes from uncontrolled sources, and securing
   access and control over the dictionary content in the same way as the
   response content.  In addition, the following requirements on a
   server are intended to disable dictionary-aware compression when the
   client provides CORS request header fields that indicate a cross-
   origin request context.

   The following algorithm will return FALSE for cross-origin requests
   where precautions such as not using dictionary-based compression
   should be considered:

   1.  If there is no "Sec-Fetch-Site" request header then return TRUE.

   2.  if the value of the "Sec-Fetch-Site" request header is "same-
       origin" then return TRUE.

   3.  If there is no "Sec-Fetch-Mode" request header then return TRUE.

   4.  If the value of the "Sec-Fetch-Mode" request header is "navigate"
       or "same-origin" then return TRUE.

   5.  If the value of the "Sec-Fetch-Mode" request header is "cors":

       *  If the response does not include an "Access-Control-Allow-
          Origin" response header then return FALSE.

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       *  If the request does not include an "Origin" request header
          then return FALSE.

       *  If the value of the "Access-Control-Allow-Origin" response
          header is "*" then return TRUE.

       *  If the value of the "Access-Control-Allow-Origin" response
          header matches the value of the "Origin" request header then
          return TRUE.

   6.  return FALSE.

10.  Privacy Considerations

   Since dictionaries are advertised in future requests using the hash
   of the content of the dictionary, it is possible to abuse the
   dictionary to turn it into a tracking cookie.

   To mitigate any additional tracking concerns, clients MUST treat
   dictionaries in the same way that they treat cookies [RFC6265].  This
   includes partitioning the storage as cookies are partitioned as well
   as clearing the dictionaries whenever cookies are cleared.

11.  References

11.1.  Normative References

   [FETCH]    WHATWG, "Fetch - Living Standard",
              <https://fetch.spec.whatwg.org/>.

   [FOLDING]  Watsen, K., Auerswald, E., Farrel, A., and Q. Wu,
              "Handling Long Lines in Content of Internet-Drafts and
              RFCs", RFC 8792, DOI 10.17487/RFC8792, June 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8792>.

   [HTTP]     Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
              Ed., "HTTP Semantics", STD 97, RFC 9110,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9110, June 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110>.

   [HTTP-CACHING]
              Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
              Ed., "HTTP Caching", STD 98, RFC 9111,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9111, June 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9111>.

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   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.

   [RFC8878]  Collet, Y. and M. Kucherawy, Ed., "Zstandard Compression
              and the 'application/zstd' Media Type", RFC 8878,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8878, February 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8878>.

   [SHA-256]  Eastlake 3rd, D. and T. Hansen, "US Secure Hash Algorithms
              (SHA and SHA-based HMAC and HKDF)", RFC 6234,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6234, May 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6234>.

   [SHARED-BROTLI]
              "Shared Brotli Compressed Data Format", September 2022,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-vandevenne-shared-
              brotli-format/>.

   [STRUCTURED-FIELDS]
              "Structured Field Values for HTTP", May 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-httpbis-
              sfbis/>.

   [URL]      Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
              Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
              RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986>.

   [URLPATTERN]
              WHATWG, "URL Pattern - Living Standard",
              <https://urlpattern.spec.whatwg.org/>.

   [WEB-LINKING]
              Nottingham, M., "Web Linking", RFC 8288,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8288, October 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8288>.

11.2.  Informative References

   [RFC5861]  Nottingham, M., "HTTP Cache-Control Extensions for Stale
              Content", RFC 5861, DOI 10.17487/RFC5861, May 2010,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5861>.

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   [RFC6265]  Barth, A., "HTTP State Management Mechanism", RFC 6265,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6265, April 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6265>.

   [RFC7457]  Sheffer, Y., Holz, R., and P. Saint-Andre, "Summarizing
              Known Attacks on Transport Layer Security (TLS) and
              Datagram TLS (DTLS)", RFC 7457, DOI 10.17487/RFC7457,
              February 2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7457>.

   [RFC7932]  Alakuijala, J. and Z. Szabadka, "Brotli Compressed Data
              Format", RFC 7932, DOI 10.17487/RFC7932, July 2016,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7932>.

Authors' Addresses

   Patrick Meenan (editor)
   Google LLC
   Email: [email protected]

   Yoav Weiss (editor)
   Shopify Inc
   Email: [email protected]

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