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What we need is for Microsoft, Apple, and Mozilla to settle on a plan to collectively eliminate negligent CAs. It seems like existing CAs would have to hand out
by MertsA 10y ago
What we need is for Microsoft, Apple, and Mozilla to settle on a plan to collectively eliminate negligent CAs. It seems like existing CAs would have to hand out valid certs to Hitler before they are removed from the trusted root store. We already have high standards for any new CAs to be added, why can't we have high standards for CAs to keep their trusted status?
We don't have to either do nothing or revoke the CA entirely. We could just only trust certificates with an issue date before a certain deadline. When the next DigiNotar or Comodo pops up just set a deadline of 3 or 6 months to revoke their status as a CA. No customers would be harmed by this, they have the rest of the lifetime of their cert or 6 months to move to a decent CA. This would be a clear stop to an untrustworthy CA without the negative ramifications for any party other than the CA itself. And 5 years or so after the deadline has past, all of their certs are invalid anyways and the CA can be completely removed. If the CA starts issuing bogus certs with a forged issue date, just remove them immediately and make sure that every CA knows that this is the process for removing a CA.
Maybe we wouldn't have CAs in the news every year if there were actual consequences for existing CAs.
- Declanomous 10y agoI don't see a good reason why handing out a certificate to Hitler would be grounds for having your root trust revoked.
- benmcnelly 10y agoExactly, I don't get this argument at all. I think the way Google handled the Symantec issue was just fine, but we don't need to live in a world where CA's need precrime units to clear someone for a cert. I do Nazi issuing Hitler a cert as a problem, anne frankly I don't think anyone should care.
- MertsA 10y agoI was mostly just being hyperbolic but I meant valid certs for domains that our hypothetical Hitler did not own.
- unethical_ban 10y agoIt's ok to hand certs to Hitler. It's not OK to let Hitler be an intermediate CA.