[Cryptography] Certificates and PKI

[Viktor Dukhovni]

On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 01:33:53PM +0000, Ben Laurie wrote:

> On 21 December 2014 at 19:19, Viktor Dukhovni <cryptography at dukhovni.org> wrote:
> >     * More progress needs to be made on the DNSSEC last-mile
> >       problem,
> 
> Indeed, this does appear to be the biggest blocker for DANE.
> 
> But also: DANE puts registries and registrars in the roles of CA and
> RA. If we think CAs are not a good solution, how is it the
> registries/registrars magically are?

Recall that DANE is a better DV, it is not trying to be "EV".
CA-based DV verifies domain control to a much weaker extent (if at
all) than the syllogistic domain control established via the
relationship between registrant and registrar.

There is one registrar at a time for any given domain.  This part
of DANE is *not* the problem, a registrar or DNS hosting provider
can also convince any of the panoply of CAs to issue a DV cert.

The last mile problem is not a problem for MTA to MTA SMTP, or
server to server XMPP, and thus unsurprisingly deployment is starting
with these.  It will take some time and effort to make inroads in
the mobile device space.  DNSSEC stapling (if/when revived) could
be a big help there.

-- 
	Viktor.