On Sunday, October 23, 2016, Peter Bowen <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 23, 2016 at 2:41 PM, Ryan Sleevi <[email protected]
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > I'm curious to understand the interpretation of Section 4.2, and it's
> > presumed implications for CT clients.
> >
> > At present, Section 4.2 (
> > https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-trans-rfc6962-bis-19#section-4.2
> > )  states:
> >
> >    An intermediate CA certificate or intermediate CA precertificate that
> >    contains the Name Constraints [RFC5280] extension MAY be logged in
> >    place of end-entity certificates issued by that intermediate CA, as
> >    long as all of the following conditions are met
> >
> > As I read this, this implies that this is not an obligation upon
> > clients to recognize this extension, or this approach to logging. That
> > is, a client (such as Google Chrome) may consider rejecting such
> > certificates as part of its Certificate Transparency policy. At
> > present, this is where the thinking of Chrome is, but if it's
> > perceived to obligate clients to recognize such events, then I'd like
> > to try to see how to tweak the text to make it clearer that this is
> > optional - for logs and for clients.
>
> The draft clearly calls for TLS clients to accept this.  See section 8:
>
>    TLS servers MUST use at least one of the three mechanisms listed
>    below to present one or more SCTs from one or more logs to each TLS
>    client during full TLS handshakes, where each SCT corresponds to the
>    server certificate or to a name-constrained intermediate the server
>    certificate chains to.
>
> Section 10.2.6 makes it clear that section 8 defines compliance:
>
>    If any certificate in a chain includes the transparency_info
>    (Section 8.5) TLS extension identifier in the TLS Feature [RFC7633]
>    certificate extension, then CT compliance (using any of the
>    mechanisms from Section 8) is required.
>
> It appears that the methiod in 4.2 is explicitly called out in other
> sections and does not appear to be optional for clients.


It is precisely these sections that I have heard disagreeing
interpretations, precisely because it implies dictating policy about what a
client accepts.

As a counter-interpretation, what about clients that impose policy on the
SCTs delivered - such as Chrome does.

Either we accept CT compliance is locally defined - which suggests
optionality - or it's an unnessecary constraint on policy inconsistent with
existing 6962 implementations.


> I don't think it needs moving.  The objective to allow named subjects
> of certificates to detect mis-issuance is met by using Name
> Constrained CAs.  Just as a subject monitors for end-entity
> certificates she did not authorize, she should also monitor for
> subordinate CAs she did not authorize.  The effect is the same --
> ensuring that there is proper authorization for the issuance of
> certificates.


While this is true, as you know, this is not the only objective of CT from
existing implementations.

For example, it prevents detection of misissuance as defined by the
CA/Browser Forum's Baseline Requirements, as name constrained sub-CAs still
have obligations of issuance practice imposed on them.

Your interpretation suggests the only value of CT is for specific domain
holders, but I don't believe that's a correct or shared interpretation.
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