Steve and Rick:

> 
> 1. Certificate Transparency Goals and Mechanisms
>  
> The goals of Certificate Transparency (CT) are threefold: detection, 
> deterrence, and enabling remediation of mis-issuance of certificates. The 
> initial focus of CT is the Web PKI context, (The Web PKI context refers to 
> the use of a set of Certification Authorities (CAs) that issue X.509 
> certificates to web servers to enable TLS-protected access by clients [cite 
> WPKOPS?].) In the future, it is anticipated that addition 
> *additional*operational contexts may be supported. As a result, mis-issuance 
> is defined in an fashion that accommodates a range of types of certificates 
> used in a range of contexts.
>  
> CT supports detection of mis-issuance using logs of certificates, populated 
> by the CAs that issue them or by the Subjects of certificates. Monitors 
> (described in Section X) are the primary elements of the CT system that check 
> certificates for syntactic and semantic mis-issuance, on behalf of Subjects. 
> A Monitor may be operated by a third party on behalf of Subjects, or may be 
> operated by a Subject on its own behalf. (The latter is referred to as 
> “self-monitoring”.) Logs may optionally perform syntactic checks for some 
> classes of certificates, but a log is not required to offer certificate 
> checking.
> The first sentence needs to be more broad, since anyone can send a cert to a 
> log. But it’s most likely to be the CAs or the Subjects, so I would suggest 
> “CT supports detection of mis-issuance using logs of certificates, populated 
> by the CAs that issue them, by the Subjects of certificates, or by anyone 
> with knowledge of the entire certificate chain.”.

Can't anyone build the certificate chain?  Since the logs are posting the 
supported trust anchors, anyone can build a chain for the end entity 
certificate.

>  
> To enable Monitors (and, optionally, logs) to perform an appropriate set of 
> checks, the (pre-) a CCID MUST be provided to a log when a certificate is 
> submitted by a CA or Subject. This CCID MUST appear in the log entry and in 
> the SCT generated by the log. By providing the CCID in logs and SCTs, both 
> Monitors and clients are empowered to perform applicable checks based on the 
> certificate class asserted by the CA or Subject.
> Hmm… Since anyone can send a cert to a log, the first sentence must reflect 
> that. But that makes me wonder what should happen if the “Reporter” (I don’t 
> want to introduce a new role) sends the wrong CCID? (By “wrong” I mean it’s a 
> valid CCID, but it’s not the one that the CA would associate with the cert.) 
> Or sends the cert multiple times with different CCIDs? I guess Monitors would 
> have to expect multiple entries for a given certificate in a given log, with 
> different CCIDs. I’m not sure if 6962-bis imposes any uniqueness constraint 
> that this might violate.  

Alternatively, a log could check to see if the reported certificate is already 
present, and if so, return the older entry to the party that reports the 
certificate.  I seem to recall reading this idea at some point, buy I admit I 
did not look into the current I-D to see if that was where i read it.

>  
> A log MUST generate a Syntax Verification Value (SVV) for the certificate, 
> and include the SVV in the log entry and in the SCT.
> The LVV *SVV* is *a* value specified by this document (see Section Z) that 
> indicates whether or not the log performed applicable syntactic checks, and 
> whether the (pre-) certificate passed of *or* failed the checks. Although it 
> is anticipated that new certificate classes will arise over time, the set of 
> log actions with respect to syntax checking appears to be well-defined and 
> thus need not be represented in an IANA registry. Each SCT issued by a log 
> MUST include an SVV.  
>  
>  
> Value Interpretation
> 0                 The CCID value was 0, so not *no* checks were performed
> 1                 This log does not perform syntax checks
> 2                 This log does not support syntax checks for the asserted 
> CCID
> 3                 This log performed the syntax checks for the asserted CCID, 
> and the certificate passed
> 4                 This log performed the syntax checks for the asserted CCID, 
> and the certificate failed
>  
> No other SVV values are defined by this RFC.

If the log performs some validation checks, are you suggesting that a relying 
party can leverage the work already done by the log?  If so, it puts the log 
checking at a different place in the certificate validation than I was 
imagining.

Russ

_______________________________________________
Trans mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/trans

Reply via email to