I don't know how far you have gotten with <keygen>.
You may be interested in knowing what the "competition" is doing :-)
>From a provisioning point of view smart cards have a long way to go. >From
>the SKS paper:
"even if you buy a $100 card; it still doesn't enable an on-line issuer
to verify that keys were actually created in the card!"
Since on-line provisioning is the norm for Information Cards, mobile device
keys, etc, I have added something which I call "Air-tight Provisioning" to the
USB memory stick design I'm working with.
Air-tight provisioning, the basics:
http://webpki.org/papers/keygen2/secure-key-store.pdf
If you take a look at "Dual-use Device IDs", you will find a novel (?) use of
device certificates.
Air-tight provisioning, core facility:
http://webpki.org/papers/keygen2/session-key-establishment--security-element-2-server.pdf
The most important conclusion drawn so far is that provisioning must be an
integral part of a cryptographic sub-system, otherwise it will be full with
quirks, security holes, and interoperability issues. A good thing is that
nothing prevents designs like the above to be used with conventional
cryptographic APIs for the "execution" part of a key's life; it is "only" the
provisioning and management operations that need a major overhaul.
Is this standardization? Not really. After talking to literally hundreds of
people, it is fairly clear that standardization takes too long time, is riddled
by politics, and very often lacks real-world testing. XKMS is an example of a
standard that failed on the market in spite of being supported by all he big
guns. Open design, free code, and a community seems to be the most realistic
way ahead.
Anders Rundgren
