CNNIC is an opportunity to learn from mistakes. One conclusion I draw is that PKIX and OpenPGP have very different expectations of trust providers. We could express OpenPGP key signings as PKIX certificates but this would be a mistake. They are better understood to be 'endorsements' rather than 'certificates'.
Another conclusion is that there is a lot of infrastructure in the PKIX world that should not be abandoned or ignored lightly. Mistakes are not evidence of a flawed system unless there is no adaptation. In the wake of DigiNotar the Web PKI has changed significantly and we are also in the process of adding TRANS. A possible model for future PKI is to think in terms of a victorian skyscraper. There is a steel structure and a brick exterior. Both are necessary for the structure to stand up. I think we need to rethink how the principle of least privilege applies here and make sure we are doing everything we can to minimize risk. As a matter of policy, no cert should ever issue for a private key that is not under the direct control of a CA unless one of the following apply to the corresponding cert: 1) The other party has CP, CPS and full audit for operating a CA. 2) There is a name constraint. 3) It is an end entity certificate. Further no private key should ever be in a network accessible device unless the following apply: 1) There is a path length constraint that limits issue to EE certs. 2) It is an end entity certificate. _______________________________________________ therightkey mailing list [email protected] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/therightkey
