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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 8/10/21 5:40 PM, Phillip
Hallam-Baker wrote:<br>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">The
reason that the confusion arises is that the WebPKI
uniquely conflates authentication and authorization.
Recall that the original purpose of the WebPKI was
authentication, encryption was limited to 40(!) bits. The
WebPKI was designed to make shopping online as safe as
shopping in a traditional store. The point of a VeriSign
Class 3 cert was to tell the user that the merchant was
accountable to law enforcement in a particular
jurisdiction. <br>
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As soon as we established that there are no legal requirements
to be a certificate authority, revocation became meaningless. The
default standard for browsers is "accept all cert authorities"
because otherwise users will see error messages and blame the
browsers. Becoming a cert authority proves exactly nothing and
doesn't have to because nobody requires proof of anything. <br>
<br>
And that's easy, right? They're only certifying that the check
cleared. The CA knows exactly nothing about the people who are
buying certificates, and doesn't need to know. Doesn't even want to
know, because if they knew they might possibly become legally
responsible for, I dunno, claiming those people are trustworthy or
something. The CA trusts that these people wrote a check that
cleared, once. That's all the trust that the CA has in them, why
should users trust them any further than that?<br>
<br>
If cert authorities provide a root key to the browser makers,
they will have their certificates accepted. Only after repeatedly
engaging in the most flagrant abuses, and getting repeatedly caught
and repeatedly convicted, could they possibly have the browser
makers refuse their rootkey. <br>
<br>
And I want to point out, that's the only kind of revocation
that has traction. When the software packager says 'no, this clown
has been issuing fake certs for scammers to pretend to be major
companies, so we're not putting this key into our file of trusted
CA's in the next version,' THAT is the only way all those fake
certs are meaningfully revoked. Everything else can be ignored. <br>
<br>
It can be ignored by the browser makers who want want quick
responses and want users to not see error messages, so they don't
bother checking certs - or ignore certain kinds of cert failure like
expiry "because nobody renews their certs on time." It can be
ignored by the CAs who don't wind up legally liable when scammers
use their certs. Most are different jurisdictions than most of the
people who'd care about those scams anyhow. It can be ignored by
self-sabotaging users who click through error messages - and switch
browsers to one that's more obligingly broken if it turns out they
can't. And it can sure as hell be ignored by scammers whose
livelihood depends on users honoring their certs. <br>
<br>
The users are literally the only people who have a motive to
revoke a scammer's cert or a faithless CA's authority, and as the
self-sabotage behavior shows they have no understanding that would
lead them to do so. The users have only very limited power to
revoke, can only revoke in a way that helps no other users at all,
and can only revoke because of information they're not supposed to
have to track down themselves (or why do we have certs at all) using
techniques that they don't know about have and most of them don't
even have the background to understand. <br>
<br>
So, no. Until and unless CA's are legally liable for scammers
using fake certs, or browser makers legally liable for what
customers lose to scammers whose certs the CA would reject if
presented, there is no hope. Without some chain of legal
responsibility that reaches from the customer all the way through to
the scammer, there is no possibility of getting anyone to care
enough about revocation to actually implement it properly and have
cert revocation and unconditional REJECTION of revoked certs become
the standard basic industry practice. <br>
<br>
Renewing an expired cert is mainly an afterthought now, even
for "serious" businesses. If revocation were a real thing that
could matter to anyone, an expired or revoked cert should and would
literally and absolutely shut your entire website down. If it
happened to a "serious" company it would be a six-alarm emergency
that costs people careers.<br>
<br>
Bear<br>
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