At 7:26 PM -0400 4/5/07, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 07:32:09AM -0700, Paul Hoffman wrote:
Control: The root signing key only controls the contents of the root,
not any level below the root.
That is, of course, false,
This is, of course false. In order to control the contents of the
second level of the DNS, they have to either change the control of
the first level (it's kinda obvious when they take .net away from
VeriSign) or they have to sign across the hierarchy (it's kinda
obvious when furble.net is signed by someone other than .net).
and presumably is _exactly_ why DHS wants
the root signing key:
Um, since when are you (or I) so good at figuring out what DHS wants?
For that matter, assuming that a massive bureaucracy like DHS has one
thing that it wants also seems silly. For all we know, this could be
one clue-deprived dork who can write press releases after not really
listening to the one technical person whom he asked. Or it could be a
conspiracy to take over the Department of Commerce. Or ...
because, with it, one can sign the appropriate
chain of keys to forge records for any zone one likes.
If the owner of any key signs below their level, it is immediately
visible to anyone doing active checking. The root signing furble.net
instead of .net signing furble.net is a complete giveaway to a
violation of the hierarchy and an invitation for everyone to call
bullshit on the signer. Doing so would completely negate the value of
owning the root-signing key.
Plus, now that applications are keeping public keys for services in
the DNS, one can, in fact, forge those entries and thus conduct man in
the middle surveillance on anyone dumb enough to use DNS alone as a
trust conveyor for those protocols (e.g. SSH and quite possibly soon
HTTPS).
...again assuming that the users of those keys don't bother to look
who signed them. Given that this thread is about an entity whom
almost no one trusts being the key holder, that scenario seems
unlikely.
I know you understand this stuff well enough to know these risks exist.
I'm curious why you'd minimize them.
Because I believe that ISPs, not just security geeks, will be
vigilant in watching whether there is any layer-hopping signing and
will scream loudly when they see it. AOL and MSN have much more to
lose if DHS decides to screw with the DNS than anyone on this list
does. Having said that, it is likely that we will be the ones to
shoot the signal flares if DHS (or ICANN, for that matter) misuses
the root signing key. But it won't be us that causes DHS to stand
down or, more likely, get thrown off the root: it's the companies who
have billions of dollars to lose if the DNS becomes untrusted.
--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium
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