Ka-Ping Yee wrote:
How does a user know that Paypal GmbH or Paypal Ltd is not the same as
Paypal, Inc, without being able to compare the two? Company names are
not global.
It depends on the CA's policies. It would be nice to have a trustworthy CA tell me that i'm dealing with the company that's registered the name Paypal in the United States, for example.
If CAs can't provide a reliable binding between a certificate
and a real-world entity, then in my opinion they're pretty useless.
There are several schools of thought as to what a CA's cert was supposed to be:
1. a binding from domain name to key,
thus closing the MITM based on DNS
spoofing.
2. a binding of meat-space identity to
key, thus allowing the user to feel
that she can take the risk on of shopping
at this site.Which it is depends on which group you are talking to, and when. It's not entirely out of the question that it is only one of them, and not the other, but the prevailing view seems to be that it is 1. and 2. if that can be managed.
One needs to establish which it is that you
want; once established, there are many ways
to then proceed. However, one needs to also
make sure not to flit between the two of these
according to the convenience of the conversation,
as that would break the security model.
If the CAs are scrupulous andBut the name can be truthful and still misleading.
competent, they should refuse to issue certificates with confusing or
misleading names.
Yes, i agree. Then you can argue one of two things:
(a) CAs are at fault and should be pressured to do a better job.
(b) We should enable users to not have to depend on CAs.
Well, only (b) makes sense because there is no way known to reliably promise that all CAs will do the right thing all the time.
iang
--
News and views on what matters in finance+crypto:
http://financialcryptography.com/_______________________________________________ Mozilla-security mailing list Mozilla-security@mozilla.org http://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/mozilla-security
