On 17 March 2016 at 15:00, Stephen Kent <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ben,
>
>
> OK. If you are right, then its pretty clear that any implementation that
> relies on CRLs/OCSP specified further up the path than the EE cert has a
> serious problem that has nothing to do with CT.
>
> Yes, I am right. But, again, I am puzzled by your comment. In PKIs in
> general, the revocation
> status of an EE cert is specified by the CA that issued the cert. (There are
> provisions
> for indirect CRLs, but that's not a commonly used mechanism). RFC 5280
> recognizes that there
> can be vulnerabilities associated with acquiring CRLs or OCSP data in some
> contexts, and
> that's why AIA allows a CA to tell RPs where to acquire such data. However,
> for backward
> compatibility purposes, and because this is not a problem in all contexts,
> 5280 does not
> mandate use  of this extension. Thus one ought not assume that it is always
> present,
> and it is appropriate to acknowledge this residual vulnerability where
> applicable.

I am struggling to imagine a context in which this is not a problem.
But maybe there is one.

> Note, that the RPKI does mandate use of AIA to point to CRLs, and relying
> parties
> in that context are required to verify that the extension is present,. If
> it's missing
> the cert (EE or CA) is rejected.
>
> The CT related problem is that people could perhaps be fooled into
> thinking it was not necessary to revoke some logged bogus certificates
> because they appear to come from a chain that was not trusted anyway.
>
> True. Also, a browser vendor might decide that it didn't need to blacklist
> the
> EE cert because it had already been revoked by the CA.

I think that would depend on the EE cert (i.e. does it include the
AIAs needed?).

> Don't forget that the purpose of CT is to reveal problems with
> certificates, not to solve them.
>
> My characterization of CT (draft-kent-trans-architecture-02.txt) is:
>
>    Certificate transparency (CT) is a set of mechanisms designed to
>    deter, detect, and facilitate remediation of certificate mis-issuance
>    (as defined below).
>
> I wrote this (month ago) because I thought it was useful to provide a
> concise
> characterization of CT goals. Do you disagree with the text above?

No.

>
> Also, I don't get the logic of the "not-logged bogus certificate",
> which is identical to the logged certificate - and is therefore
> logged. And not bogus.
>
> A cert is bogus when it is issued to an entity that is not authorized
> to represent the Subject of the cert. This is true whether the cert is
> logged or not.
>
> Ah, I see. In that case, is the cert in question not a "logged bogus cert"?
>
>
> yes, it is.
>
> Steve
>
>

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