Subject: <keygen> - An HTML5 standard facility?

From: Anders Rundgren <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 22:13:42 +0200

http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-keygen-element

Since the PKI community at large seems to ignore the client-side of
PKI in browsers, the HTML 5 designers apparently didn't find any other
solution but adopting the 15 year old Netscape hack known as <keygen>.

It is indeed as said in this list very simple to use etc.  However,
does it really match the needs of today?

My guess FWIW, is that the serious users of on-line provisioning of PKI
which includes governments and banks in the EU, as well as the USPTO
will continue to use entirely proprietary solutions (mostly using Java), since
the browser-schemes are all-over-the-map and do not do signatures either.

A few things to consider:

How could a static tag in a page mark-up language match an API
or a protocol?

Algorithm agility, isn't that a requirement these days?

PIN-codes anybody?

TPM - A dead duck?

Anders