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Re: Problem for public CAs

2000-02-07 11:35:40
Graham,

The problem with requiring email addresses in certificates (assuming
the address is examined by Mail User Agents) is much more basic:  the
identity certified by a CA has in principle nothing to do with where
email is sent from or delivered to.  Regardless of whether I want my
Certified Net Nym to be "Dave Kemp" or 
"dpkemp(_at_)missi(_dot_)ncsc(_dot_)mil", I
should be able to send and receive S/MIME messages using any address,
including "dave(_at_)alumni(_dot_)podunk(_dot_)edu" and 
"12345(_at_)compuserve(_dot_)com", without
having to know in advance where I might be or who I'll be using for
an ISP.

The concept that Identification and Authentication should be independent
of transport addressing seems not to have gained traction last time
around, for some unfathomable reason.  Perhaps the spam and privacy
arguments will resonate more effectively with readers of this list.

Good luck.

Dave



From: "Graham Laws" <lawsg(_at_)it(_dot_)postoffice(_dot_)co(_dot_)uk>
To: "'SMIME IETF'" <ietf-smime(_at_)imc(_dot_)org>
Subject: Problem for public CAs
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2000 14:24:16 -0000
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For public CAs, particularly in Europe, the requirement to place an email
address in the subjectAltname extension of each x.509 public key certificate
in order to enable S/MIME is a big problem.

Firstly, all such certificates must reside in a public Directory. Any
determined spammer is going to be able to easily create an immense spam list
from the Directory's entire certificate population, using a few LDAP calls
and an ASN.1 decoder. Our customers are already nervous at the prospect of
this, and for potential customers it may be a significant bar to take-up.

Secondly, the European Privacy Directive looks very unfavourably upon
real-world identities being in any way expressed both in the Subject and
SubjectAltName attributes of the public key certificate. This would appear
to rule out S/MIME for those whose names are embedded in their email
addresses, e.g.  graham(_dot_)laws(_at_)postoffice(_dot_)co(_dot_)uk

The issues raised by the second point are relatively easy to circumvent. Use
pseudonymous names for the Subject, and insist on a pseudonymous email
address if S/MIME is required.

But the first point about the ease with which spam lists can be created is a
real worrier. I have looked through previous threads, including the one
entitled "Mail addresses in S/MIME certs", but I can't find where these
specific issues have been discussed before.

Comments/discussion via this forum welcome.

Best Regards
Graham Laws

______________________________________________
Graham Laws
PKI Systems Technical Consultant
Royal Mail ViaCode    Phone :         +44 (0)1246-293761
Block A, 1st Floor    Postline : 5453-3761
St. Mary's Court              Fax :   +44 (0)1246-293751
St. Mary's Gate
Chesterfield
S41 7TD

Public Key Validation String : MXZQ-7MM5-9A58




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