Rick,

Are you saying that the presence of EKU in CA certificates is simply gratuitous?

And how does technical constraining the CA without enforcement on the other end 
help relieve one of audit requirements?

To me, this all sounds like putting head in the sand and inviting the problems 
all over again that CT is supposed to solve.  If the CA goes rogue or is 
hacked, the only way to detect and reject such mis-issued certificates is to 
see if they were in compliance with EKUs CA was constrained for.  

May be that is not what you mean.  May be you mean not all CAs need to be 
technically constrained.  If so, the logic at the start of this mail thread is 
fine since the EKU constraint is only invoked when present.

Separately, in light of how some of most commonly used platforms view absence 
on EKU or presence of anyExtendedKeyUsage as legitimate code signing 
certificate, and not all parties agreeing on how to mitigate this concern, I 
see good security value in departure from 5280 by asserting (and more 
importantly enforcing) EKU in certification path. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Andrews [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2014 3:27 PM
To: Santosh Chokhani; Stephen Kent; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [Trans] path validation

Santosh,

The CABF Baseline Requirements don't require the intermediate to be technically 
constrained, and most are not. The language about technical constraints is 
there to address Mozilla's CA policy 
(https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/security-group/certs/policy/inclusion/)
 which waives the audit and disclosure requirements for intermediates 
("subordinates" in Mozilla's language) that are technically constrained. 

Since it's not an absolute requirement at this point (either from CABF or from 
individual browsers' policies) I suggest that log servers cannot enforce the 
use of technical constraints in intermediate CAs.

-Rick

-----Original Message-----
From: Santosh Chokhani [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2014 12:13 PM
To: Rick Andrews; Stephen Kent; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [Trans] path validation

Rick,

I thought so.  

But, the reason I made the comment is that the CABF document requires the CA to 
be "technically" constrained by using the EKU in the CA certificate.  To me 
that is the same as what Microsoft says.  Am I missing something?  Besides, the 
only way I see enforcement of this "technical constraint" coming is either the 
SCT provider doing the check or the relying party or both perform the check 
listed at the bottom of this mail thread.

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Andrews [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2014 3:01 PM
To: Santosh Chokhani; Stephen Kent; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [Trans] path validation

Santosh,

I believe that text is there because Microsoft has been advocating the use of 
EKUs in intermediate certificates to limit their scope, and they've built 
nested EKU checking into their chain validation code. See 
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1760.windows-root-certificate-program-technical-requirements-version-2-0.aspx

-Rick

-----Original Message-----
From: Trans [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Santosh Chokhani
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2014 11:28 AM
To: Stephen Kent; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Trans] path validation

<snip>

BTW, I am confused by what the CABF document says in Appendix B item:
"Generally Extended Key Usage will only appear within end entity certificates 
(as highlighted in RFC 5280 (4.2.1.12)), however, Subordinate CAs MAY include 
the extension to further protect relying parties until the use of the extension 
is consistent between Application Software Suppliers whose software is used by 
a substantial portion of Relying Parties worldwide"


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