On 5 December 2012 23:15, Patrick Baxter <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 5:29 AM, Melvin Carvalho > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Not sure I've grokked everything in this thread, but some thoughts. > > > I'm working on the TL;DR version :). > > > Tying a key to a 'domain' (aka URI) is something that can be done already > > using linked data. > > > > I do so on my home page already: > > > > http://melvincarvalho.com/ > > > > This contains my GPG key, fingerprint, hex_id, modulus and exponent. > > > > Here is the data view of the same page: > > > > > http://graphite.ecs.soton.ac.uk/browser/?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmelvincarvalho.com%2F > > I'm not sure I understand what it is that ties your key to the domain. > > So, for example, you know your public key and it that it is the proper > public key for your website. However, from an outsider's perspective, > anyone could publish a signature and claim ownership of your domain. > If they control the network path to a user first looking at your > webpage, then there is no consensus on which public key will get you > MITM'd and which is your actual key if they choose to present a > different one. You add strength by making it available on your > website, but it only goes so far. >
The domain is tied to the information via DNS, which is the main web paradigm. Semantic tags let you make assertions in machine readable form. Yes, in theory I could add an SSL cert to my homepage, though I havent paid for one yes. There's a theoretical attack from MITM, but this is the case for much of the web. I'm working on something that can provide extra strength by recording your public keys over time: http://publickey.info/ But I havent really had time to maintain it yet. > > My general idea is somewhat encompassing of the Sovereign Keys idea, > but thats just part of the solution. Generally, I'd argue, you want a > keysever infrastructure similar to the EFF's soverign keys that > establish's a known single mapping. It widely distributes the public > keys to that keyserver with software so that you have a secure > connection into that data from the start. Now, you have to balance the > needs of updating this mapping with the security of the > infrastructure. There is lots of ways to capture meaningful data on > validity and I'm for using as many ways as possible such that it still > makes sense. Also, keeping a database of personally validated keys is > still massively useful for things like email, phone, and chat. It can > be used in conjunction with a better key server infrastructure to > minimize the trust you place on it. > I need to read up on sovereign keys a bit more. Has there been any serious critiques of it yet? > > You could probably also argue that the less authority a key-server > infrastructure has, the more resistant it is to corruption. This lends > strength to trying to not entirely relying on it even if it is > distributed and replicated. > > Now, the idea is that with this infrastructure you are restricted to > how you learn about new keys. So an active attacker on your network > connection will not find it so trivial present an fake key to users > that are connecting for the first time. > > > Scroll down to see the PKI fields. > > > > I can use this key to sign and encrypt mail, for s/MIME as an x.509 > > certificate, to login via ssh and also encrypted chat on retroshare > > > > I also have links to other people storing keys in a kind of web of trust. > > > > What you call the WOT is really a Graph of Trust (GOT) or Network of > Trust > > (NOT) in so far as the Web is normally loosely associated with HTTP. > > Maybe, I'm confusing the issue by trying to tie too many things > together, but the I think the problems all have a lot of fundamental > things in common. > > Also, If a user can link to you through a WOT, then they have that > initial validity that creates a much strong authentication and don't > have to trust the first key servered over the network. I think there > is a ton more potential for more effectively using WOT paths to > establish validity as well. > Yes, trust should be additive, rather than one WOT to rule them all. There's no perfect trust system, but you can do things to increase the confidence interval. You can generate a lot of functionality with limited trust too. The thing I dont like is when trust creates a barrier to entry that does NOT allow you to do things. Users should have freedom to choose, imho. > > > > > I think in terms of accessibility and usability we need a GPG equivalent > of > > what "hotmail" did to email. This is what we call "webizing". Then > people > > can make relations, sign and encrypt, over the web just as easily as > they do > > with desktop clients. Obviously a huge task and the crypto in the > browser > > group will help. > > Definitely a massive undertaking and I think the most relevant problem > to the world of crypto. It is getting better and more transparent (OTR > ect.) and I think one of the last difficult tasks is making it easy > for users with little knowledge to not only use crypto, but also be > strongly authenticated. Its not terribly difficult to make an app that > opportunistically establishes encryption, how do we make the user > capture strong validity by default? I think, its in the form of better > keyservers (users might need a little initial work to establish their > key and prove they own their email for example) and signing keys > automatically when you determine you have captured some sort of > validity on that key (See ZRTP's authentication or the social > millionaire protocol for OTR). > > And of course the last issue is finding a sane way for user's to store > and use private keys. Hence the PSST project and the eventual idea of > PGP smart card type computing devices. > I was at TPAC a couple of months ago and Mozilla did an impressive demo of crypto in the browser to generate keys and encrypt/decrypt. The W3C Crypto working group will hopefully provide some great API for those that wish to work with the web and with PKI. I think in this way it may be possible to scale the great features of GPG to a wider audience. But as I say, most groups are lite on resources, so it takes 1-2 people to make theory a reality...
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