Subject: RE: Revoking bogus certificates

From: [email-masked] (Peter Gutmann)
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 02:44:37 (NZST)

"Paul Gogarty" <[email-masked]> writes:
 
>>(Looking through the codes again, what *is* a caCompromise, as opposed to a
>>keyCompromise?  Could this be used for neverValid (caCompromise implies they
>>issued the cert in error)?  OTOH a CMP-style "undo" isn't really a
>>caCompromise, and it's possible that many CAs won't like using a reason code
>>which implies they screwed up).
>
>It was my understanding that caCompromise signalled that the certificate had
>been revoked because the private key of the CA had become compromised.
 
Wouldn't that be handled by revoking the CA's key with a reason code of 
keyCompromise?
 
Peter.

---

From: "Paul Gogarty" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 12:00:46 +0100

Revoking the CA certificate will deny the use of an end entity certificate
(if the validity of the certification path is properly checked). But the end
entity certificate is not revoked.

I was under the impression that caCompromise provided a revocation reason so
that end entity certificates could be revoked for completeness if a CA
became compromised.

Whether or not end entity certificates should be revoked due to a CA
compromise leads into the same grey area as whether or not to revoke
certificates in the case of accidental destruction of an end entity key
pair. But in this case there is a revocation reason provided to deal with
the revocation of end entity certificates, allowing CAs to define there own
policy of what to do in the event of a CA compromise.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2001 2:45 AM
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]
Subject: RE: Revoking bogus certificates

Peter.