4 ms·
> One of the major reasons to revoke a certificate is that the private key is compromised. The private key was not compromised. The proof of this is that Apple
by _qulr 6y ago
> One of the major reasons to revoke a certificate is that the private key is compromised.
The private key was not compromised. The proof of this is that Apple un-revoked the very same certificate. The cert is valid again.
- simonh 6y agoThat’s really not how private keys work. If I had stolen a copy of the private key, or if HP published it on their web site, un-revoking the certificate would still work fine.
- _qulr 6y ago> un-revoking the certificate would still work fine It's not a question of whether it would "work". If the private key was out in the wild, then Apple would never un-revoke the cert. That would be insane, because anyone could sign software with it.
- simonh 6y agoThey wouldn’t necessarily know.
- _qulr 6y agoWhy wouldn't they know? It seems that some people want to claim that Apple has to act based on a single email and is incapable of replying to that email or calling on the phone, when Apple has the phone # of every registered developer.
- simonh 6y agoHow could Apple possibly know for sure whether HP had actually lost a key or not? All they have to go on is what HP tells them. Anyway this could have nothing to do with key security. Apple gets certificate revocation requests all the time, to disable test builds, disabled badly bugged software versions, to disable software for licensing reasons. It’s the developer’s choice when or if they revoke a cert. Do you have any evidence this request was different enough to require escalated investigation compared to any other routine request? HP doesn’t seem to think it was.
- _qulr 6y ago> Apple gets certificate revocation requests all the time, to disable test builds, disabled badly bugged software versions, to disable software for licensing reasons. How do you know this? What is the evidence for this claim? The strange thing about this claim is that certificate revocation does not disable specific builds, it disabled every piece of software ever signed with the cert, so this wouldn't even accomplish what you claim it accomplishes.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- simonh 6y agoYou just sign different builds with different certs. That’s how come this revocation only disabled particular HP drivers, not ever piece of software for the Mac released by HP.
- _qulr 6y ago> You just The reason we're even discussing this issue is that there was a huge public fallout. You don't "just" do anything. This was a nightmare for many HP users, who just couldn't print at all. How do you "just" deliver new builds to users when the old builds won't even open?
- simonh 6y agoI was simply responding to the claim that the only reason to revoke a cert is to disable malware, and that such requests were very rare, and gave a counter example showing this is not true. One of the uses of certs is to sign test builds with a different cert from the production release, so that you can ask Apple to disable them after release. So Apple gets requests to revoke certs for this, and other reasons all the time. In this case HP had used a different cert for these drivers as against other drivers, showing that they used different certs for different purposes, that's all.