Ryan, I’m glad you referred to our Sept. 20 SCWG teleconference in your message 
below, and what was said there.  I went back to listen and I prepared draft 
Minutes on the Shanghai Agenda/audits issues portion.  (I’m sending those 
Minutes to the Management list because they have not yet been approved for 
publication on the Public list.)  I also included a link in that message to the 
recording so interested members can confirm for themselves what was said on the 
call.

The recording and draft Minutes of our Thursday teleconference do not support 
your recollection of the call as presented below.  Here are the main takeaways 
from the 15 minute discussion on the call.


·       I asked if anyone had Agenda items to propose for the Shanghai meeting. 
 You suggested the Forum discuss the process for inclusion of roots in browser 
root programs from the auditing standpoint, the audits required from birth to 
death of a CA, and the variety of program requirements in place that require 
different things.  You said clarity and consensus on that and related verbiage 
would be useful, and this also applies to reworked language in BR 8.1 and 8.2 
and confusion around performance audits.  You thought these issues could take 
at least an hour of time at the meeting, and that 30 minutes might be necessary 
to get everyone on the same page concerning audit vocabulary, as some people 
use phrases that don’t match with professional terms.  You said the goal was to 
a common understanding as well as diagramming what the expected process should 
look like with the appropriate audit schemes recognized.  You did not initially 
say you wanted to be a presenter or the sole presenter on all these related 
issues.

·       Jeff Ward of WebTrust said he and Don Sheehy were planning on covering 
those issues from a WebTrust standpoint during their update report, which would 
take about an hour.  He said they would not be talking about what the browser 
root programs should or should not require from CAs.

·       Kirk said the topic of the CA audit lifecycle from birth to death was 
aspirational and a separate issue from the audit problems encountered today, 
and that Wayne already said he wanted to present on that topic at the Sept. 11 
WebTrust meeting in San Jose.  Wayne confirmed he wanted to present that topic 
at the Shanghai meeting.  You offered to do it if he didn’t want to do it, and 
he said the two of you could work together

·       There was more discussion where you said that current audit problems 
and ideal life cycle were the same issue.  Wayne disagreed, and said the topics 
were related but should be  treated as separate topics.

·       Dimitris said that discussing the Bylaws audit requirements for Forum 
membership should be deferred until after you and Wayne had made your 
presentations, and maybe should be combined with discussion of all the other 
pending Bylaws we have.

·       Arno Fiedler representing ETSI said ACAB’s representatives would be at 
the Shanghai meeting, and would like to present ETSIs perspective.

·       At the end, I asked if you wanted to be the presenter of a segment of 
these issues, and you said yes, that was what you were initially proposing.  
You did not say you wanted to be the sole presenter of all the issues discussed.

·       I said that I would put together something for the Agenda on these 
issues.

So on last Thursday’s call, we had requests to be presenters on these related 
issues by Jeff/Don (WebTrust), Arno/Clemens (ETSI), Wayne (Life Cycle of a CA), 
and you.  Dimitris recommended we treat the Forum audit requirements for 
Membership along with other pending Bylaws issues but after these initial 
presentations.

That’s pretty much how I broke things down on my Agenda proposal on Friday.  I 
think we will all benefit the most if we start with a simple explanation and 
listing from WebTrust and ETSI (issues #1 and #2) of their current audits and 
reports as a refresher for the members on what comes next.  You have complete 
control of the problems the current audit systems are causing for browsers, 
including helping us understand and use the right vocabulary (issue #3).  If 
Wayne wants to pull you in on his presentation on the ideal life cycle for a CA 
from birth to death (issue #4, which I understood focuses in part on different 
issues than current browser), that’s fine with me – the two of you can 
refashion issues #3 and #4 as you please, and just give me the new descriptive 
text for the Agenda.  Finally, as Dimitris and I agreed on the call, the 
question of how our Bylaws on audit requirements for membership should be 
interpreted or amended (issue #5) should be discussed later, as a separate 
matter after you and Wayne have made your presentations.  I’d like Dimitris to 
handle issue #5 as the presenter, as he will be the person speaking for the 
Forum on new membership applications starting November 1 when he takes over as 
Chair.

Again, anyone who wants more details on our Thursday discussion of these issues 
can look at the draft Minutes I’m sending on the Management list.

From: Ryan Sleevi [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2018 11:26 AM
To: Kirk Hall <[email protected]>
Cc: CABFPub <[email protected]>
Subject: [EXTERNAL]Re: [cabfpub] Proposed Shanghai Agenda covering audit issues

On Sun, Sep 23, 2018 at 1:59 PM Kirk Hall 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I believe topic #3 as I have listed it below fairly presents your request on 
the Sept. 20  teleconference call, as it covers what you said you wanted to 
discuss – “Problems faced by root programs from existing WebTrust/ETSI reports 
and terminology.”  You didn’t request #1 or #2 because I was the one who 
thought of adding those segments when drafting the Agenda – this is intended as 
an introduction to existing audit/report types from the people who actually run 
WebTrust and ETSI to help educate the Members in the room so they can then 
fully understand the remaining topics #3 - #5.

Kirk, I do not believe it to be fairly presented. If there is any confusion, 
it's no doubt because you were interjecting during my description of the 
session to indicate you did not believe it would be necessary, as you felt it 
would take "60 seconds, at best".

I felt there was a clear request for a session, of 60 to 90 minutes length, by 
Google, to cover these topics. Do you believe that request - the first thing 
that was asked for - was unclear? At several times during the call, you 
attempted to suggest different topics of discussion, or why you felt they were 
not necessary, and again, the request was made.

You didn’t request #4 – Wayne did that at the WebTrust meeting in San Jose on 
Sept. 11, and I made a note at that time.  So I think it’s appropriate to let 
Wayne present his ideas.

Finally, while you did raise a different interpretation of our membership rules 
on our Sept. 6 teleconference than we have followed in the past (you said you 
thought a Point in Time audit is enough for a CA applicant to qualify for full 
membership under the current Bylaws, which is not what we have done in the past 
or what the members said they wanted in the Doodle poll) I was actually the 
person who raised the question of what form of audit is required for membership 
during that call.  Because Dimitris will be taking over new membership requests 
in November, it makes sense for him to present that issue.

While perhaps that's the case, if you also recall, on our previous call, I 
indicated that I have been working with both ETSI and WebTrust to address the 
issues arising from your misunderstanding and misrepresentation - of the Doodle 
poll and of the respective audits. Happy to revisit that with you, if you felt 
it was unclear that this was a topic that Google was actively working on

But I will remove Dimitris as a Moderator for the five issues – each presenter 
can be the moderator of his own topic.  And I will remove Wayne as a 
co-presenter with you on #3 and make you sole presenter – but I know Wayne also 
said he was having problems with some forms of audit reports, so I hope you 
will let him add his input during #3.

If you want to suggest different wording for your #3 below, please let me know 
and I will include it on the Agenda.   How much time would you like for this 
segment?

I again reiterate the request that was made on the call, for 60 - 90 minutes 
for a session, prior to the discussion about future expectations, to include 
both a presentation based on discussions Google has been having with browser 
representatives and auditor members, to bring clarity to these matters.

Can you ensure that such a thing is scheduled? Or do you believe your schedule 
is the only way to get this on the agenda?
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