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Comment by zvr | Hacker News Reader

Ah, but there are actually different types of SBOMs, that describe the software in different parts of its lifecycle. It's a completely different outcome to record the software when looking at its source, at what is being distributed, or at what is being installed, for example.

At some point we realized that we were talking across each other, since everyone was using "SBOM" to describe different contents and use cases.

The consensus was expressed around 3 years ago, and published in https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-04/sbom-types-...

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I haven't had a chance to read that, but do you think it would be impractical to have the different types of SBOMs declared in a standardized format? My impression is that no matter what, authenticity needs to be established, so it will always fall under "cryptographic verification of information about software", it is the standardization of that which I have an issue with.

All types of SBOMs can be described in the same standardized format. SPDX 3.0 has a specific property and a set of values this one can take: https://spdx.github.io/spdx-spec/v3.0.1/model/Software/Vocab...

The digital signing of SBOM artifacts, so that one can verify authorship and authenticity, is something external to the SBOM data, on top of them.

If you are asking about a standardized way to check these, across all computing environments, I think this is a tall order. There are obviously environments currently where this check is present, and there are environments where this is rigorously enforced: software will not load and execute unless it's signed by a specific key and the signature is valid. But the environments are so diverse, I doubt a single verification process is possible.

Yes, TLS for example uses X.509, as do lots of things. The container format, as well as the data-structure. I'm saying not just for SBOM, but for the code-signing cert aspect as well. I wouldn't mind if there was an "SBOM" usage in X.509, and CA's sell SBOM signing certs or whatever, but the sad fact is, I think some mobile platforms, macos and windows are the only place this is used.

We need for data-at-rest, what TLS has been for data-in-motion.

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