How about just requiring that CAs update the URL on changes?

Let's Encrypt has a phrase in their agreement that further usage =
agreement to new terms to ensure that it doesn't break automation.

Martin Thomson <[email protected]> schrieb am Mi., 9. Dez. 2015
02:10:

> Two comments: Echoing an etag would be easier.  SHA-512 is overkill.
>
> On 9 December 2015 at 10:15, Michael Tandy <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Currently in the new-reg stage, the client POSTs a signed message, which
> may
> > contain the URI of a user agreement. If the content of the URL changes,
> the
> > results could be confusing - client software updating certificates might
> > post the agreement URL without the user having agreed to the revised
> terms.
> >
> > Is it worth adding an optional agreement integrity field? We could use a
> > format like this:-
> >
> > "agreement":
> > "https://letsencrypt.org/documents/LE-SA-v1.0.1-July-27-2015.pdf";,
> > "agreement-integrity":
> >
> "sha512-3Ys8QL9di54ggXIGBAS2RHr_W6cMurZPizhZihkQjwl3VG2dpXZYmsYZ0B7LG-tWlVE9-Hwp9hL3Mosvbr6lCA"
> >
> > where the checksum is calculated like so:-
> >
> > $ cat LE-SA-v1.0.1-July-27-2015.pdf  | openssl dgst -sha512 -binary |
> > openssl base64 -A | tr -- '+/' '-_' | tr -d '='
> >
> 3Ys8QL9di54ggXIGBAS2RHr_W6cMurZPizhZihkQjwl3VG2dpXZYmsYZ0B7LG-tWlVE9-Hwp9hL3Mosvbr6lCA
> >
> > That way if the CA updates the agreement without updating the URL, it'll
> be
> > clear which version the user has agreed to.
> >
> > The main downsides to this are:
> >
> > 1. It complicates setting up the client; realistically, instead of
> > downloading, reading, and checksumming the user agreement most users will
> > simply copy-and-paste the configuration data from some website. Why add
> to
> > the boilerplate configuration, making the software harder to use for no
> real
> > benefit? We all know in reality enforcement of the user agreement will
> be by
> > certificate revocation, not by the courts; why add to the sound and fury
> of
> > threatening legalese when it signifies nothing?
> >
> > 2. Perhaps allowing CAs to update their user agreements without the
> user's
> > knowledge is preferable to CAs breaking users' certificate renewal
> scripts
> > without the user's knowledge. The latter could mean that a server that is
> > running fine and securely one day will become inaccessible the next day,
> > unable to renew its certificate without manual intervention to accept a
> new
> > agreement. Reliably sending e-mail is difficult due to spam filtering, so
> > many servers aren't set up to push notification to administrators when
> > problems like this arise.
> >
> > 3. The checksummed agreement could refer to other documents; those would
> not
> > be covered by the checksum, so they could be changed. The only thing
> > preventing this is good faith on the part of the CAs. Given that we rely
> on
> > that, why not also rely on the good faith of the CA to update the URL
> when
> > they update the agreement?
> >
> > 4. If SHA-512 becomes obsolete, manual intervention may be required to
> > calculate a new checksum using an updated algorithm. In the event there
> were
> > multiple CAs and SHA-512 approached obsolescence, some CAs might only
> accept
> > SHA-512 while others didn't accept SHA-512. Clients might be complicated
> > with an ability to send multiple checksums, or to negotiate the checksum
> > algorithm.
> >
> > 5. This proposal is similar to http://www.w3.org/TR/SRI/ except this
> > proposal uses URL- and filename-safe base64 encoding (RFC4648 Section 5
> with
> > padding removed), only requires SHA-512, and doesn't explicitly support
> > multiple hash algorithms; whereas the SRI recommendation uses traditional
> > base64 encoding (RFC4648 Section 4); requires SHA-256, SHA-384 and
> SHA-512;
> > and explicitly includes support for multiple hash algorithms. Designs so
> > similar yet incompatible may be a recipe for confusion; perhaps
> additional
> > differences should be introduced so the incompatible standards are more
> > obviously different.
> >
> > 6. People are already writing client software; maybe it's too late to
> update
> > the spec for such a marginal improvement.
> >
> > What do you think?
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
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