Nelson B wrote:
I think the X.509 folks never dreamed that there would exist low-assurance CAs. They assumed all CAs would be high assurance.
That's just naive... What other types of security, physical or other wise uses a 1 size fits all policy?
Well, remember, X.509 is an outgrowth of X.500, which came from CCITT (now known as ITU) the standards body of the European telephone companies, all of which were (are?) state run or state sanctioned monopolies. They thought *they* were going to be the operators of the X.500 directories and the X.509 CAs. I think the term "one size fits all policy" describes the CCITT world of a few years ago pretty well.
I think my predecessors (original designers of NSS) thought that all SSL and code-signing CAs would be high assurance, and therefore thought that the 3 trust bits (email, SSL, code signing) were enough to distinguish (root CA) certs as to level of assurance.
Can we honestly say that is still the case,
I think we (er, MF) *could*, if MF was willing to require, in its CA cert policy, that CAs for SSL and Code Signing must use a specified minimum level of authentication in the issuance of those certs. But presently, it seems the policy is willing to give any WebTrust-attested CA whatever trust bits they request. So, at the moment, no, I cannot say it is still the case.
> if not can it be addressed
some how in a sane manner to give the user more information on what they're about to do, I guess this is similar to the debate over monetary values etc...
Yes. I very much wish we could get the UI czars for FF/TB engaged in the discussions in n.p.m.security, but I'm not optimistic. _______________________________________________ mozilla-crypto mailing list [email protected] http://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/mozilla-crypto
