Subject: [Spasm] CAB Forum efforts on S/MIME and client certs

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2016 10:12:06 -0400

Just a heads up for people in this group that there is a working group
starting in CABForum looking at client certificate validation processes.

One point that it might be useful to work on jointly would be ways of
making use of organization level certificates in S/MIME systems. The WebPKI
works well at what it is designed to do. The problem with the WebPKI is
that is a subset of people want it to do.

By 2030 I would love to see secure email to have got to the point where
there is something like 'booths in shopping malls' where professionals,
doctors, lawyers, etc. go to get their credentials notarized. But we aren't
close to that yet and we won't ever get there unless we have another way to
get to critical mass.

Making use of EV guidelines or some variant thereof to jumpstart the
process of issue seems like it could be a way to get to deployment of
S/MIME in the public space.

Right now we have a perfect storm as far as end to end email security is
concerned. Snowden has got the tech community worked up on the issue. And
email security is currently the top issue in the US Presidential election.
I think that is a ludicrous situation but whoever wins is very likely to
make fixing email insecurity a priority.

And no, I don't think the opponents of strong crypto are going to stand in
the way this time. In fact I think they will soon be looking for new jobs.
Yes, even the one who thinks he has tenure.

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2016 13:24:05 -0400

Phillip:

This is certainly beyond the current LAMPS charter.  That said, I’m willing to work on things that will make it easier to get S/MIME certificates.  This was one of the goals of the ENROLL WG [see https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/enroll/charter/], but that did not work out.  Maybe we can get that restarted, per haps with a more narrow focus.

Russ

On Oct 28, 2016, at 10:12 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Just a heads up for people in this group that there is a working group starting in CABForum looking at client certificate validation processes.
> 
> One point that it might be useful to work on jointly would be ways of making use of organization level certificates in S/MIME systems. The WebPKI works well at what it is designed to do. The problem with the WebPKI is that is a subset of people want it to do.
> 
> 
> By 2030 I would love to see secure email to have got to the point where there is something like 'booths in shopping malls' where professionals, doctors, lawyers, etc. go to get their credentials notarized. But we aren't close to that yet and we won't ever get there unless we have another way to get to critical mass.
> 
> Making use of EV guidelines or some variant thereof to jumpstart the process of issue seems like it could be a way to get to deployment of S/MIME in the public space.
> 
> 
> Right now we have a perfect storm as far as end to end email security is concerned. Snowden has got the tech community worked up on the issue. And email security is currently the top issue in the US Presidential election. I think that is a ludicrous situation but whoever wins is very likely to make fixing email insecurity a priority.
> 
> And no, I don't think the opponents of strong crypto are going to stand in the way this time. In fact I think they will soon be looking for new jobs. Yes, even the one who thinks he has tenure.

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2016 22:42:03 +0100

Wearing no hats...

On 28/10/16 18:24, Russ Housley wrote:
> That said, I’m willing to work on things that will make it easier to
> get S/MIME certificates.

I think to be credible, an overall approach to e2e email security
has to address a number of issues - while only some of those are
IETF things, and while we might break down the work into multiple
independent bits, I'd honesty be surprised if any of those parts
was worthwhile, if done all by itself.

IOW, I'd be surprised if there were merit in trying to address
s/mime enrolment when there are so many other killer reasons
why e2e email security currently doesn't get used.

All that said, if there were a credible overall plan then I'd also
be up for helping. But, that'd have to e.g. have some of the
major mail providers involved or supportive, or else have a story
as to why those don't need to be involved at all. I'm not seeing
that so far myself.

S.

---

From: Wei Chuang <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 06:40:41 -0700

[Usual caveat about not speaking on behalf of the employer]

I've also been wondering if EV like guidelines with S/MIME in certain use
cases could help users better understand identity. I think having
additional discussion about enhanced identity would be very helpful and
agree the timing is right. Now just to clarify my understanding, is the
CABForum specifically looking at this as well?

-Wei

On Fri, Oct 28, 2016 at 7:12 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]
> wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> Spasm mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/spasm
>
>

---

From: Peter Bowen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 07:20:14 -0700

The CABForum is in the process of updating its bylaws and IPR
agreement to to allow it to expand scope.  One of the things members
have suggested discussing is S/MIME certificates, but a working group
has not yet been started.

It is worth noting that anyone can join CABForum working group
discussions as long as they agree to the IPR agreement.  In CABF
parlance, these are "Interested Parties".  I will make sure there is a
call for participation on this list when the CABF WG is created.

Thanks,
Peter

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 6:40 AM, Wei Chuang <[email-masked]> wrote:
> cases could help users better understand identity. I think having additional
> discussion about enhanced identity would be very helpful and agree the
> timing is right. Now just to clarify my understanding, is the CABForum
> specifically looking at this as well?
>
> -Wei
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 28, 2016 at 7:12 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>
>> works well at what it is designed to do. The problem with the WebPKI is that
>> is a subset of people want it to do.
>>
>>
>> process of issue seems like it could be a way to get to deployment of S/MIME
>> in the public space.
>>
>>
>> email security is currently the top issue in the US Presidential election. I
>> think that is a ludicrous situation but whoever wins is very likely to make
>> fixing email insecurity a priority.
>>

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 14:50:34 +0000

> It is worth noting that anyone can join CABForum working group discussions
> as long as they agree to the IPR agreement.

Can interested parties vote on the ballots?

--  
Senior Architect, Akamai Technologies
Member, OpenSSL Dev Team
IM: [email-masked] Twitter: RichSalz

---

From: Peter Bowen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 08:08:26 -0700

> Can interested parties vote on the ballots?

In the new model, each working group will have its own voting rules.
However, as it is currently, we expect that:
1) the general object is to achieve consensus and make voting more of
a formality and
2) any guidelines published by a CABForum working group (like those
published by the Forum itself today) are not binding.  They simply
provide a common set of rules that trust anchor list maintainers may
adopt in full or in part as conditions for entry into and retention in
the trust anchor list.

Thanks,
Peter

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 16:41:16 +0000

> published by the Forum itself today) are not binding.  They simply provide a
> common set of rules that trust anchor list maintainers may adopt in full or in
> part as conditions for entry into and retention in the trust anchor list.

They're not?  Hmm, okay.  So CA/B had no involvement in SHA1?  Interesting.

At any rate, glad to see it's opening up more.  Come to the IETF, folks.

---

From: Peter Bowen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 10:37:39 -0700

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 9:41 AM, Salz, Rich <[email-masked]> wrote:
> They're not?  Hmm, okay.  So CA/B had no involvement in SHA1?

Microsoft set the SHA-1 policy in November 2013
(https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/srd/2013/11/12/security-advisory-2880823-recommendation-to-discontinue-use-of-sha-1/,
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/11/hoping-to-avert-collision-with-disaster-microsoft-retires-sha1/).

Google announced they would make updates in early 2014 and followed it
up in August 2014 with an Intent to Deprecate
(https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!msg/blink-dev/2-R4XziFc7A/YO0ZSrX_X4wJ).

Mozilla published their update on SHA-1 in September 2014
(https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2014/09/23/phasing-out-certificates-with-sha-1-based-signature-algorithms/).

The CA/Browser Forum didn't ballot anything about SHA-1 until October
2014 (https://cabforum.org/2014/10/16/ballot-118-sha-1-sunset/).

So I would say that SHA-1 is a perfect example of ballots being a
formalization of consensus (or maybe acceptance of the inevitable),
not where the CA/Browser Forum is making decisions.

Thanks,
Peter

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 17:37:22 -0400

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 12:41 PM, Salz, Rich <[email-masked]> wrote:

> provide a

​CA/Forum did not make the decision to kill SHA-1​. However it did several
important things

1) It established a date when every CA would stop issue across the industry

​2)​ Provided a reference point for the change being certain

3) Provided a forum in which to discuss necessary exceptions

If IETF had proposed a sunset date with a 5 year due date it might have
stuck but it probably wouldn't have. The problem with SHA-1 was that no CA
could afford to stop issue unless they were sure that the browsers really
were going to shut the certs down and vice versa.

It is a different set of concerns to the ones that IETF discusses and not a
set of concerns that lends itself to consensus. These are practical issues
where the people making the decisions are the people with skin in the game.