Subject: [Asrg] {Asrg] some comments on the signing and authentication off-topic rant

From: "Tom Thomson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 11:38:16 -0000

>From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
>Subject: RE: [Asrg] DCC and IP checksums
>
>> From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
>>
>> ...
>> The design of the code signing services was to ensure that code
>> obtained through the web was at least as trustworthy as code bought
>> in a shrinkwrap box in a store. It was not to eliminate all possible
>> risks.
>> ...
>
>Requiring that the signature on the new version of the code match the
>signature on the original from the shrinkwrap box would be a significant
>and radical improvement on the ActiveX model and what I understood Phillip
>Hallam-Baker to be proposing.  As I understand ActiveX, esssentially any
>code signed by any vendor recognized by Microsoft and marked "safe" by
>the vendor is allowed free reign to do whatever it wants.

In that case you don't understand active-X very well.  It's possible to set
up your box in a variety of different ways. Most of my boxes will tell me
when they see an sibned active-X control, tell me who signed it, tell me
whether it is marked "safe for scripting", and ask me if I want to let it
run.

It also strikes me that there's a pretty clear distinction between
authentication in that setup - someone signed it and the system checks the
certificate chain - and authorisation - I give permission for the code to
run - so maybe you have been falsely accusing MS about failing to make that
distinction?  Certainly I have never seen anything from MS that tells me I
should trust signed code, as opposed to trusting that it was signed by the
signer.

I don't think MS is particularly good at security, but they aren't any worse
than anyone else in the business (apart from their email scripting, where
they really introduced a nightmare for themselves and for all their
customers)and they seem to be less inclined to push snake oil than some
rival camps. Code signing was designed for exactly what Phill described and
works as well as any PK system will work for that purpose (which is not
actually very well, since certifying authorities have no relationship with
relying parties, but is probably the best that can be done at present).

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