Thanks Ryan, I just wanted to be sure there was no ambiguity being introduced.  
I agree with your assessment.

Doug

From: Ryan Sleevi [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, July 6, 2017 11:54 AM
To: Doug Beattie <[email protected]>; CA/Browser Forum Public 
Discussion List <[email protected]>
Cc: Gervase Markham <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [cabfpub] Ballot 204: Forbid DTPs from doing Domain/IP Ownership 
Validation



On Thu, Jul 6, 2017 at 11:43 AM, Doug Beattie via Public 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Gerv,

I realize I just missed the review period, but I wanted to ask a question 
anyway.

Regarding this statement:

"The CA SHALL confirm that, as of the date the Certificate issues, the CA has 
validated each Fully‐Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) listed in the Certificate 
using at least one of the methods listed below, or is within the Domain 
Namespace of a Fully-Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) that has been validated using 
at least one of the methods listed below (not including the method defined in 
section 3.2.2.4.8)."

Is this a valid example:

-        The Applicant requests the FQDN of 
shop.example.com<http://shop.example.com>

-        The CA validates example.com<http://example.com> (a valid 
Authorization Domain Name) and approves the FQDN of 
www.example.com<http://www.example.com>

-        The Applicant requests the FQDN of 
www.example.com<http://www.example.com>

-        Since the CA validated example.com<http://example.com>, then 
www.example.com<http://www.example.com> can be issued

The reason I ask is that the FQDN of example.com<http://example.com> was never 
requested, so technically it may not be a value that can be re-used (perhaps 
only the FQDNs that were previously requested can be reused and since this was 
never specifically requested maybe it can’t be reused).  I hope it can be 
reused as in the example above, and as long as we all agree on the 
interpretation, I’m comfortable voting for the ballot.

Doug

Thanks for raising this question, Doug.

For context, the current BRs for that section read:

"The CA SHALL confirm that, as of the date the Certificate issues, either the 
CA or a Delegated Third Party has validated each Fully‐Qualified Domain Name 
(FQDN) listed in the Certificate using at least one of the methods listed 
below. "

Gerv's additional clause (of the "or"), does not normatively add or remove 
capabilities, since the language of the text (with respect to "Authorization 
Domain Name") means that all methods supporting an ADN (or Base Domain Name) 
meet the first criteria, which is all of them.

On this basis, when the Applicant requests the FQDN of 
shop.example.com<http://shop.example.com>, and the CA validates using an ADN, 
they are entitled to approve www.example.com<http://www.example.com>. Further, 
the data or documents used to validate the ADN can be reused for subsequent 
validations, pursuant with the "Completed confirmations of Applicant 
authority", as "example.com<http://example.com>" has a completed confirmation 
of Applicant authority for that ADN.

Subsequently, for as long as that method remains within the BRs, it's possible 
to reuse that "Authorization Domain Name authority" to issue additional 
certificates for subdomains, such as "www". In each case, the FQDN is being 
authorized using the "Completed confirmation" of the Authorization Domain Name, 
and the ADN was validated according to the (current, not previous) BRs.

If the BRs change how the ADN is validated, it would not necessarily constitute 
a "completed confirmation" - this is the ambiguity as to whether "initiated 
within the time period specified in the relevant requirement" retroactively 
grandfathers in previous validation methods (which CAs would prefer it does, 
and I would prefer it doesn't, for security reasons).

Hopefully this clarifies how the use of a completed confirmation of an ADN to 
subsequently validate an FQDN constitutes the CA having the validated the FQDN, 
even though the ADN authorization was reused.
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