Phil,
The examples you give about backed-in trust anchors are valid, but
they point to decisions by vendors to simplify their designs at the
cost of secruity and functionality. I've been told that it is very
hard, if not impossible, to permanently remove some vendor-supplied
TAs in a popular browser. These are not fundamental results of
architectural decisions of the sort the IETF makes, but vendor
choices that lead to possible problems for user.
I think I understand the multi-party, RP-centric threshold approach
to managing the DNSSEC root that you outlined. But, in a DNSSEC
environment, IANA performs two roles:
- it coordinates the info from the gTLDs and ccTLDs and constructs
the authoritative root zone file
- it signs the records of that file
Any scheme that allows multiple entities to "confirm" the content of
the root zone file also has to include a means for these entities to
independently acquire and verify the master file data and to create a
separate, distinct master file if they disagree. This is a lot more
complex that what you outlined in your message (from an from an
administrative vs. crypto perspective). It also raises questions
about how complex RP software has to be in dealing with multiple sets
of quasi-authoritative root authorities. All experience to date
suggests that RPs fare poorly when trying to deal with much less
complex trust anchor situations in other PKI environments today.
It is conceivable (under the new administration) that ICANN will stop
being under the control of the U.S DoC, but it also is not clear that
such a change would ameliorate the concerns of all governments with
regard to this issue. I think the set of folks who feel a need to use
other than the current, proposed model (IANA as the DNSSEC root) are
a very small minority of the set of public Internet users and thus
they should bear the burden of dealing with the resulting costs and
complexity for managing alternative root schemes. I don't think that
such costs and complexity should be borne by the vast majority of
Internet users. Its also not clear how long one might spend debating
the question of whether any single scheme would satisfy all of the
players who are not comfortable with the current model.
Steve
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