[SSL Observatory] SSL CA compromise in the wild

[Steve Schultze]

On Mar 23, 2011, at 12:32 PM, Ludwig Nussel wrote:
> Steve Schultze wrote:
>>> A problem of course is trying to put the smoke back in the bottle -
>>> going to CAs and telling them their broad signing powers are now going
>>> to be restricted.  It'd be extremely difficult if not impossible to
>>> regulate signing certs already issued, and trying to regulate them
>>> going forward would probably bring cries of anger from the signers who
>>> want to be 'grandfathered' in and have the overarching powers of the
>>> signers that got there first.
>> 
>> Yes, this is the biggest problem.  Also, how do you decide which CAs have
>> authority for which ccTLDs?  Is it based on the country in which they do
>> business?  That's what Chris Soghoian has suggested.
>> 
>> What about non-ccTLDs?
> 
> The domain registry could simply issue the certificate at the same
> time it assigns the domain name.

That is an equivalent structure to signing DNS with DNSSEC, allowing the registrant to place a DS record in the parent zone, and implementing a standard for domain holders to place keys in their zone... which is what DANE is about:

https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/keyassure

I think that DANE is a better mechanism for doing so, rather than perpetuating the current CA/X.509 system... and it has the benefit of being deployable in parallel so that we don't need to force CAs to make the change themselves (which they would never do).