Subject: RE: Request change in son-of-rfc2633

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 09:18:41 -0500

> I agree with you that both 3280 and X.509 require name chaining.
However,
> the security implications and security importance of name chaining is
> overstated.
>
> For example, if signatures chain properly for the certificate and CRL and
> the relying party has appropriate means (e.g., e-mail address) to
identify
> the subscriber, name chaining offers little in terms of security.
>
> My statement should be read purely in security (and NOT interoperability)
> context.

I think this isn't quite right, if you intended it the way I'm interpreting
what you've written.

You seem to be saying only that "the relying-party must have appropriate
means to identify the *leaf* subscriber".  But surely, the RP must also
have appropriate means to identify the intermediate CAs as well, else the
RP cannot evaluate the degree of trust it places in the cert-chain.  And,
for better or worse, the standard means of identifying CAs is DN (not,
e.g., email addr).

As with your note, this comment is security-relevant, not an observation on
interoperability.

---

From: "Santosh Chokhani" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 11:10:57 -0500

Walt:

My comment was purely for checking the names during path validation.  I did
not say that you do not assert the names and do not make these available to
the RP as part of certification path.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 9:19 AM
To: Santosh Chokhani
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: Request change in son-of-rfc2633

However,
> For example, if signatures chain properly for the certificate and CRL 
> and the relying party has appropriate means (e.g., e-mail address) to
identify
> My statement should be read purely in security (and NOT 
> interoperability) context.

You seem to be saying only that "the relying-party must have appropriate
means to identify the *leaf* subscriber".  But surely, the RP must also have
appropriate means to identify the intermediate CAs as well, else the RP
cannot evaluate the degree of trust it places in the cert-chain.  And, for
better or worse, the standard means of identifying CAs is DN (not, e.g.,
email addr).