Re: [cti-users] Re: Announcing python-stix2

[Shawn Riley <shawn.p.riley@gmail.com>]

ECMA International Standards body developed _javascript_ to handle tasks in the browser. They also provided an extension to _javascript_ to develop a lightweight language for interchanging data over the Internet called _javascript_ Object Notation (JSON). The downside of JSON is that it lacks the capabilities to provide referential integrity. These data models are neither interoperable nor standardized. Which means, no data portability. JSON doesn’t provide any ability to resolve name space ambiguity in which your data is defined, or the structure and data types.

The JSON community has a IETF working draft schema specification that would provide a format for defining the structure of JSON data. This specification would provide the ability to define validation, documentation, hyperlink navigation, and interaction control of JSON data. However, this specification falls short in aligning to and delivering data type primitive and built-in capabilities that are provided by the W3C body on XML data standards. There are vendors that publish their own version of JSON schema. However, these schemas are non-standard and are unable to support portability between vendors.

The use of JSON in environments that requires interoperability of data across the enterprise will make governance more challenging. Gartner has published a white paper called: “Does your NoSQL DBMS Result in Information Governance Debt?” (subscription required). As technology leaders looking to increase data integrity and the overall resilience of their enterprise, one can only conclude that storing data as JSON objects will inhibit you from achieving these goals.

On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 12:26 PM, Wunder, John A. <jwunder@mitre.org> wrote:

Just so everyone is aware, we do have JSON Schema for STIX: https://github.com/oasis-open/cti-stix2-json-schemas

 

From: <cti-users@lists.oasis-open.org> on behalf of Nick Dimiduk <ndimiduk@gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 15, 2017 at 12:53 PM
To: Stuart Maclean <stuart@apl.washington.edu>
Cc: Greg Back <gback@mitre.org>, Eyal Paz <eyalp@checkpoint.com>, "cti@lists.oasis-open.org" <cti@lists.oasis-open.org>, "cti-users@lists.oasis-open.org" <cti-users@lists.oasis-open.org>
Subject: Re: [cti-users] Re: Announcing python-stix2

 

The python project is great! I've had some luck using the Antlr grammar files in a java project of my own. I agree it would be nice to have "official" support for more language runtimes. Ideally the tests could be refactored such that basic validation verification could be run for all target runtimes. I can volunteer some maven incantations to build java libraries, if one of the existing authors would like to support the test refactoring work.

 

Also, as a "Java Programmer", I think JSON is fine. If you need strict schema management, validation tools, there's [0].

 

[0]: http://json-schema.org/

 

On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 9:44 AM, Stuart Maclean <stuart@apl.washington.edu> wrote:

On 03/15/2017 09:22 AM, Back, Greg wrote:

Hi Eyal,

 

MITRE isn’t working on anything, and I’m not personally aware of anyone else who is either. But if someone is, hopefully they’re on one of these lists and will respond.

 

Greg

 

Greg, all,

I have followed the STIX development over the past couple of years, and even developed a Java library for STIX manipulation, see https://github.com/uw-dims/stix-java. That was when STIX 1.1 was current.

I watched with some dismay as the XML schema way of doing things in STIX 1.1 was dismantled in favor of JSON for STIX 2.  While XML schemas are complicated, they are very precise, and a document can be checked against a schema to assert its validity.  Further, the richness of tools for XML schemas, notably the JAXB/xjc tools for Java, gives developers a huge leg-up in implementing an API for STIX manipulation.  I just cranked the JAXB handle over the .xsd file set, and hey presto I had a set of Java classes with which to start my API. 

Going out on a limb here, I also think that Java developers LIKE more discipline that Python developers.  Static typing vs duck typing?  The XML schema way of representing information is disciplined, and leads to fewer 'You meant X? I thought you meant Y' gotchas at runtime. Extrapolating, I think the JSON way of data representation is less disciplined than the XML way, hence the natural inclination of Python developers to prefer JSON.

Looking at the STIX 2 specs, I admire effort the authors must have put in.  But from a library builder's point of view, there being no machine-ingestable docs (ie the xsd files in STIX 1.1), I am back to square one (if I have missed any machine-readable docs, I apologize).

So, in a nutshell, my own feeling is that there will be no Java-language STIX 2 manipulation tools, a sad fact, and I sincerely hope I am wrong in this respect.  I do know that I won't add to my STIX 1.1 Java effort.

Stuart