[Cryptography] Shouldn’t root certificates switch to McEliece?

Perry E. Metzger perry at piermont.com
Mon Sep 9 17:04:14 EDT 2019


On 9 Sep 2019 16:53:44 -0400 "John Levine" <johnl at iecc.com> wrote:
> In article <20190908180010.3d7709de at jabberwock.cb.piermont.com> you
> write:
> >On Sun, 08 Sep 2019 19:10:35 +0000 Ryan Carboni via cryptography
> ><cryptography at metzdowd.com> wrote:  
> >> Shouldn’t root certificates switch to McEliece?
> >> 
> >> Certificates are used for decades,  
> >
> >Certificates are not used for decades.  
> 
> Unfortunately, some of them are.  Look at the cert for www.yahoo.com
> or facebook.com and you'll find it chains to a DigiCert root that
> expires in 2031.

What's the expiry on the longest lived cert DigiCert has signed with
that key though? Certainly not 2031. I would be surprised if that cert
was actually in use in 2031 as well. That said, the fact that it has
that long an expiry on it (13 years) is a problem as someone could
forge new certs off the old CA key, and there will doubtless be old
unpatched machines hanging around in a decade.

Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger		perry at piermont.com


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