Subject: Re: Use of localityName attribute

From: "Anders Rundgren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 00:28:44 +0100

Tom
I think that I have a slightly different view on unique identity in EE-certificates

<snip>
>Locality is often part of the uniquely identifying set of
>information for a legally registered organization, and thus needs to go into
>some such certificates.  How about some wording such as the following:
>StateOrProvinceName and/or localityName SHOULD be included in the subject and
>issuer name only when the organization or organizationalUnit is legally
>registered as possessing a unique right to the specified organizational name
>within the state or locality specified.

When you register a company you usually provide a lot of data such as
addresses, telephone-numbers, president and board-member, some
description of what the company does etc.

In return you get a DUN-number (in the US) or a registration number (in Sweden).

Why do you need anything more than information about the registering organisation,
the subject organisation name and their registration code?

Actually the same apply equally well to individuals.  You are probably registered
with an employee-number at IBM for reasons like it is very convenient, uses very
little space and is compatible with current database technlogy.  QCs way of determine
identity based on an unspecified (or variant) set of attributes is extremely
hard to combine with normal staff adminstering systems.  That you may want to
search a certified entity for various attributes does not require these to be included
in the certificate.  And then any number of attributes can be specified externally in
the way that apply to the situation/business etc. without interfering with the certificate.

As an analogy: I have yet to see a computerized customer register using anything
but a single unique code to separate them from each other.  Or a credit-card BTW.

And aren't certificates mainly intended for computers to read and interprete?

<snip>

Regards
Anders Rundgren

---

From: Stephen Kent <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 22:56:47 -0400

Anders,

>In return you get a DUN-number (in the US) or a registration number (in

The use of DUN numbers is purely a private sector initiative.  Dun and
Bradstreet and encouraging companies to sign up, but this form of
registration is not universal and has no intrinsic legal standing.  It's
just an initiative my a company to increase the value of their database, so
that they can sell the database contents to clients.  Maybe the Swedish
registration is a government sanctioned form of registration, but DUN
numbers are not.

Steve