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I disagree the problem is a lack of choice, because what realistic alternative choices actually exist? Web of trust a-la PGP key signing parties is a ridiculou

I disagree the problem is a lack of choice, because what realistic alternative choices actually exist? Web of trust a-la PGP key signing parties is a ridiculous solution for people who aren't super nerds (and even for super nerds it's pretty bad). Trust on first use works OK-ish in SSH, but it's hard to see that as a realistic solution for trust as a whole if you try to scale it up to every user needing to access arbitrary servers. Maybe CAs are a bad solution, but if so it's in the sense of the quote about democracy being the worst form of government except for all the other ones. At the end of the day, the CA system has managed to deliver working cryptographic trust at a scale that galatically surpasses anything else.

JohnFen 3y ago
> what realistic alternative choices actually exist? Yeah, that's a problem. I certainly can't think of one. But even if there were, it would still be an enormous struggle just to shift to using it at this point. That struggle also means that there isn't a huge amount of effort being put into finding a better way. The CA system certainly has great benefits in terms of delivering reasonable security in a relatively convenient way, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it still sucks in ton of different ways that are inherent to the idea. It also can't be used (at least not without great struggle) in some situations.
- rainsford 3y ago
  I definitely agree that there is an inertia problem, as there is with a lot of technology. But I also think changes can happen quicker than people think if new alternatives are introduced that solve fundamental problems with the entrenched solution. Arguably this actually has happened with the legacy CA system, people just don't think of it that way because it looks like Let's Encrypt and certificate transparency instead of something involving blockchain or whatever. LE and CT were huge disruptions in the CA space and in my view fixed a lot of the problems with the CA system, even if they didn't totally get rid of it. To borrow your excellent phrasing, they made it suck in a lot fewer ways than it used to. Maybe some complete replacement could do better, but there is a lot to be said for iterative improvement of an existing solution instead of hoping for a fantasy total replacement.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Interesting that you bring up LE as an improvement of the CA system. I view it as a fairly messy hack (with its own problems) around some of the faults of the CA system. I almost brought it up as an example of some of the faults of the system. We both see the same thing, but through different lenses. I have no point here, I just found that interesting.
denton-scratch 3y ago
Yeah, I didn't mention TOFU because it's a non-starter if you're trying to get a secure introduction to someone you don't know. The fundamental problem is that "identity" is problematic. How do you know someone is who they say they are? Perhaps you don't really know who you are. That's why I want a space for a certified identity that isn't tied to a government ID. Like, an instance of some software might claim an ID. Arguably, a domain is an ID. I don't see what's wrong with something or somone having multiple IDs that aren't linkable.
- rainsford 3y ago
  I agree with a lot of that, but arguably the current CA system nearly gives us that thanks to Let's Encrypt. Registering a domain requires some real government identity, but LE doesn't actually care about that. All they do is vouch to a potential visitor that they have verified TLS certificate being presented belongs to the entity that controls the domain the visitor is attempting to connect to. From LE's point of view, they don't care who owns the domain or if the owner of domain A is the same as the owner of domain B...the domain is the identity as far as they're concerned. My only complaint with Let's Encrypt is that I'm uncomfortable with so much of the Internet trust infrastructure relying on the generosity and good will of a single organization, but it's hard to imagine a better solution to the underlying problem than what they've created (other than perhaps a bunch of competing Let's Encrypts).
just-a-user 3y ago
The CA-identies only works for Real-Names not pseudonyms. The Web-of-trust has scalability issues on top of that. To plug my own work: I came up with a protocol[0] to tie identities to publications, using the DNSSEC root as trust anchor. This lets strangers verify certificates and esablish trust that a message was certainly sent by the owner of the key. This allows for key exchange between strangers, assisted by a website as introducer that does not need their true identitities. 0: https://eccentric-authentication.nl/eccentric-authentication/design-goals/ https://eccentric-authentication.nl/eccentric-authentication...

JohnFen 3y ago

> what realistic alternative choices actually exist? Yeah, that's a problem. I certainly can't think of one. But even if there were, it would still be an enormous struggle just to shift to using it at this point. That struggle also means that there isn't a huge amount of effort being put into finding a better way. The CA system certainly has great benefits in terms of delivering reasonable security in a relatively convenient way, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it still sucks in ton of different ways that are inherent to the idea. It also can't be used (at least not without great struggle) in some situations.

rainsford 3y ago
I definitely agree that there is an inertia problem, as there is with a lot of technology. But I also think changes can happen quicker than people think if new alternatives are introduced that solve fundamental problems with the entrenched solution. Arguably this actually has happened with the legacy CA system, people just don't think of it that way because it looks like Let's Encrypt and certificate transparency instead of something involving blockchain or whatever. LE and CT were huge disruptions in the CA space and in my view fixed a lot of the problems with the CA system, even if they didn't totally get rid of it. To borrow your excellent phrasing, they made it suck in a lot fewer ways than it used to. Maybe some complete replacement could do better, but there is a lot to be said for iterative improvement of an existing solution instead of hoping for a fantasy total replacement.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Interesting that you bring up LE as an improvement of the CA system. I view it as a fairly messy hack (with its own problems) around some of the faults of the CA system. I almost brought it up as an example of some of the faults of the system. We both see the same thing, but through different lenses. I have no point here, I just found that interesting.

denton-scratch 3y ago

Yeah, I didn't mention TOFU because it's a non-starter if you're trying to get a secure introduction to someone you don't know. The fundamental problem is that "identity" is problematic. How do you know someone is who they say they are? Perhaps you don't really know who you are. That's why I want a space for a certified identity that isn't tied to a government ID. Like, an instance of some software might claim an ID. Arguably, a domain is an ID. I don't see what's wrong with something or somone having multiple IDs that aren't linkable.

rainsford 3y ago
I agree with a lot of that, but arguably the current CA system nearly gives us that thanks to Let's Encrypt. Registering a domain requires some real government identity, but LE doesn't actually care about that. All they do is vouch to a potential visitor that they have verified TLS certificate being presented belongs to the entity that controls the domain the visitor is attempting to connect to. From LE's point of view, they don't care who owns the domain or if the owner of domain A is the same as the owner of domain B...the domain is the identity as far as they're concerned. My only complaint with Let's Encrypt is that I'm uncomfortable with so much of the Internet trust infrastructure relying on the generosity and good will of a single organization, but it's hard to imagine a better solution to the underlying problem than what they've created (other than perhaps a bunch of competing Let's Encrypts).

just-a-user 3y ago

The CA-identies only works for Real-Names not pseudonyms. The Web-of-trust has scalability issues on top of that. To plug my own work: I came up with a protocol[0] to tie identities to publications, using the DNSSEC root as trust anchor. This lets strangers verify certificates and esablish trust that a message was certainly sent by the owner of the key. This allows for key exchange between strangers, assisted by a website as introducer that does not need their true identitities. 0: https://eccentric-authentication.nl/eccentric-authentication/design-goals/ https://eccentric-authentication.nl/eccentric-authentication...