An attack on paypal

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

At 08:15 PM 6/18/2003 -0400, Ian Grigg wrote:
>Certificate caching is a far more powerful idea
>than, say, CA-signed certs.  If it were added
>to browsers, and servers initialised with self-
>signed certs, then the security of the net would
>go up immensely.  Integrated with some of the
>ideas that people have suggested concerning WoT,
>publically distributed certs, and individualised
>displays (amounting to local secrets keyed on the
>cert), we could actually start to see people using
>secured browsing when they wanted to rather than
>when they were forced to.

typically certificates have had two characteristics .... 1) asn.1 encoding 
for network interoperability distribution and 2) trusted third party 
binding of some information to the public key

self-signed certificate caching is really loading public key into a locally 
maintained table.

in principal there is no need to maintain asn.1 encoding format in a 
locally maintained table since it eliminates having to decode it on every 
use .... and the asn.1 encoding is only useful if you 1) are planning on 
redistributing somebody else's public key and 2) need the original bit 
format for validating the self-signed signature. The validating of the 
self-signed signature can be done on initially acquiring the certificate 
.... and then it can be decoded, and the decoded values loaded into the 
table. the table/database just becomes entries of public keys and the 
associated attributes (which might be a combination of the original plus 
any additional that you might want to add along the way).

in that sense it becomes more of authentication management .... along the 
lines of kerberos, radius, and/or the AAA RFCs, aka 
authentication,  authorization, and accounting.

in previous posts about BBB, it is possible that it would be used in 
combination with online trusted references .... i.e. analogous to real-time 
call to BBB and obtaining referrels and any complaint information ... and 
then possibly remembering it by recording it in the table (aka online trust 
propogation as opposed to the offline trust propogation represented by TTP 
certificates).

Part of the issue with the offline TTP stale, static certificate model was 
that it periodically tried to overload the contents of the certificate .... 
trying to justify the expense of the ceritifcate to the public key owner 
.... but having little or no idea what might be the future requirements  of 
a broad range of relying parties. A locally maintained relying-party 
table/database would allow the relying party to dynamically adapt the trust 
characteristics that they were interested in.

Decoding the self-signed certificate before loading into the local table 
.... helps highlight that the recorded trust characteristics don't have to 
be restricted to just those that happen to exist in the stale, static 
certificate (created at some time in the past by entities that had no 
anticipation regarding your specific trust requirements).

past discussions of online & offline trust propogation:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm12.htm#55 TTPs & AADS (part II)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm13.htm#1 OCSP and LDAP
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm14.htm#38 An attack on paypal (trivia addenda)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm14.htm#42 An attack on paypal
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm2.htm#useire U.S. & Ireland use digital 
signature
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm4.htm#0 Public Key Infrastructure: An 
Artifact...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm4.htm#2 Public Key Infrastructure: An 
Artifact...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm4.htm#4 Public Key Infrastructure: An 
Artifact...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm4.htm#5 Public Key Infrastructure: An 
Artifact...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm4.htm#7 Public Key Infrastructure: An 
Artifact...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm5.htm#shock2 revised Shocking Truth about 
Digital Signatures
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsmore.htm#pkiart2 Public Key Infrastructure: 
An Artifact...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay10.htm#83 SSL certs & baby steps
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay11.htm#7 FTC says incidence of ID theft 
jumped in 2002
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#sslset2 "SSL & SET Query" ... from 
usenet group
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#72 SET; was Re: Why trust root CAs ?
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler    http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
Internet trivia 20th anv http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm
  


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