On 2015-03-27 15:32, Massimiliano Pala wrote:
Since "I was there" when EST was created I would like to go back to that
discussion.
One of the claimed "features" was that EST was dressed in ASN.1 because "this is
what we have". This is not entirely correct, ASN.1 is still after all these years not an
intrinsic developer-exposed feature of Oracle's Java.
JSON is not a replacement for ASN.1, it is rather replacing XML. FIDO
Alliance's new U2F token protocol is expressed in JSON so this seems to be
where the industry is going. I don't think we will ever get JSON-certificates
though.
The biggest problem is really that NO certificate enrollment system has
achieved real or de-facto standards status in end-user computers. None of the
platform vendors appear to have implemented support for EST which BTW isn't
that strange since it didn't got a browser interface.
FWIW, I have created a credential enrollment (certificates+other stuff) system
which is expressed in JSON and includes a pretty cool (I think so at least...)
clear-text signature scheme. I didn't experience any difficulties in
integrating this from ground-up designed 8/10-pass (!) protocol in EJBCA, nor
getting the client to run on Android:
https://cyberphone.github.io/openkeystore/resources/docs/keygen2.html#Sample_Run
Anyway, AMCE seems to stick to PKCS #10 (I did not since it doesn't support
end-to-end security) so essentially you got what you wanted :-)
Cheers,
Anders
Dear ACME BoF-ers,
when I started to write this e-mail I did not expect to get this long - since
the content might be a bit controversial, I would encourage people to stick to
the technical arguments and not start a flame war about the topics (that
happened in the past.. many, many, many times...).
After attending the BoF and speaking with several people, I feel compelled to
bring to the community's attention some concerns about ACME. I have two
different types of concerns - procedural (and this might require a broader
audience, probably a cross post to the ietf ml), and technical. I would like
people commenting on both.
I think that ALL of the following points should be addresses before any
decision about forming a new WG or even adopting the proposed I-D as a working
item is taken.
Here's my concerns.
_*Procedural Issues.*_
*Let's Encrypt.* When the "Let's Encrypt" initiative was presented, I was quite
confused about the scope. We all agree that IETF is about defining protocols on the wire
- not promoting specific products or business models. However, in this case, I was under
the impression that the IETF was sponsoring a specific piece of software and a new CA
initiative that will be soon operational. Besides the fact that the new Let's Encrypt CA
might (maybe not now) be a commercial viable initiative, my question is: why a
non-existing, commercially viable, non-standard-based initiative is being presented at
the IETF ? This is really troublesome especially in the view of this creating a
precedence. What happens when another vendor comes to IETF and presents similar pitches
about their products - what basis do we have to deny that presentation anymore ? This, I
think, it is a really important point that should be discussed deeply.
*Overstepping the Technical Boundaries.* As it was pointed out during the BoF, the proposed
initiative does not address any technical issue, but, instead, is pushing a specific BUSINESS
model. I found very inappropriate the examples of "I could not get my certificates in 45
minutes.." as this is a NON argument. Besides the many issues about an automated certificate
issuance (even for just a DV cert), the choices made by current Internet CAs (I am referring to
Internet CAs because for corporate or "closed" PKIs automation HAS NEVER BEEN A PROBLEM
by using current standards) are based on POLICY decisions and not technical merits. Is IETF going
to be in the policy decision business instead of focusing on technical aspects of interoperability?
*Real Scope of ACME.* I think there should be a discussion about where this
work is supposed to land. If it is another attempt (as noted during the BoF) to
push further DANE (even when, as pointed out during the BoF, there is not much
real interest in the real world for it) possibly to replace work like WebPKI or
PKIX protocols, this should be clearly stated. Also, if that is the case, I
think we are potentially choosing a single-point-of-failure model for trust
(DNSSEC) which is scary and dangerous especially from a privacy perspective
considering who is in control of top-domain keys. Privacy advocates should
really be concerned about this issue.
_*Technical Issues.*_
*Reinventing the Wheel.* During the meeting I already expressed my concerns about many different aspects of the proposed scope. First off, we have a serious problem with overlapping over EXISTING IETF standards for message formats that are perfectly viable and currently deployed in a lot of environments. I am referring to the CMC / CMS / EST. Lot of time and engineering efforts have been spent over these formats and tons of certificates are, today, managed using these formats. Moreover, these formats allow for deploying systems with multiple factors of authentication and hardware tokens. I should not have to explain to the IETF community the horrible mistake to have multiple competing standards (we went down that road in the past and it was A HORRIBLE DISASTER) - that is why, at each level of the IETF, much attention has been paid to avoid this situation. I do not see why this is an exception to this very important principle. If the work in the potential WG will continue,
ARE WE GOING TO RETIRE EXISTING STANDARDS ?
*Message Format.* The argument about ASN.1 vs JSON has to be re-framed in a TECHNICAL context instead of the not-so-appropriate argument "ASN.1 is evil". First off, either we talk about JSON SCHEMA vs. ASN.1 or we talk about JSON vs. DER. These are two completely different arguments. Since we are at IETF, let's focus on the "bits on the wire". It seems to me that the choice is quite clear: DER. The format is much more well defined, more compact, and has the required flexibility to accommodate for the required data structures. JSON makes sense in a JavaScript environment (JavaScript Object Notation) - but not much more outside that. JSON is thought to be readable by humans (by design) and has several limitations when it comes to encoding binary data (additional encoding is required) or non-ASCII names (again, additional encoding is required). In a JS environment where everything is UTF16, that is not an issue (if you ever worked in the space you would know that that is not
really true for binary data encoding), but in this context the format has SERIOUS limitations that makes it a POOR format choice for the job. Moreover, considering the requirement for supporting DER as the STANDARDIZED format for ALL PKIX objects, it seems a very odd choice to require the use of yet-another-data-format (less efficient when it come to the bits on the wire) on top of what already exists and needs to be supported. Are we going to change all data formats to JSON ? If not, I do not think there are technical reasons to adopt an inferior (from a bits-on-the-wire perspective) than what we have and works today.
*
**Weak Points in I-D. *As I pointed out during the BoF, the problem to solve about
providing automation for certificate management is discoverability of the services
provided by a CA. In particular, I am referring to the fact that even if you convince a
CA to adopt yet-another-format, there is no discussion about how the different CAs will
be "discovered" - which ones support the new protocol ? The
draft-barnes-acme-01 says:
" The ACME client presents the operator with a list of CAs from
which it could get a certificate.
(This list will change over time based on the capabilities of CAs
and updates to ACME configuration.) The ACME client might prompt
the operator for payment information at this point."
This sentence makes sense only if it is referring to a specific piece of
software - since the discoverability issue is not even mentioned, I assume that
the authors of the software will have the power to DISCRIMINATE which CAs to
support. Doesn't this seem NOT APPROPRIATE for a IETF wg ? Shouldn't there be a
way to discover which CAs support which protocol ? If this problem was
addressed first, there could be some ground for BEGINNING a discussion, but as
it is written today, based just on this consideration, this document is a
non-starter. Again, are we in the business of supporting a specific software?
Moreover, how are the CAs identified ? By Name ? By the Hash of their
certificates ? What trust is to be put in such a choice ? How stale can that
information become ? Who is the authoritative information about what is
supported by a vendor ?
*
**Issued Certificates Trust Issues.* Another important point is about what is
the level of trust we want to achieve with the proposal and how this impacts
the inclusion of CAs that support this protocol into standard trust stores
(e.g., operating systems, browsers, MUAs, etc.) Since we have representatives
from the browser's community (and I also hope from OSes), this is a question
that needs to be addressed - would the adoption of this protocol be allowed for
a Trusted CA ? Since there is no actual authentication of the requesting entity
- the only level of certificates that can be issued is DV (and I have my doubts
about that too). How is this better than current procedures from a trust
perspective? Again, I know this is more of a POLICY related than technical
issue - but these questions need an answer because the document itself
oversteps the technical boundary, these are the type of discussions we also
need to address.
_*Conclusions*_
Although I have always pushed for increasing the availability of certificates
and the deployment of secure communications for almost 20yrs now, I do think
that the proposed work is a non-starter for all the reasons I described above.
I would like the whole community and the area directors to discuss the points
above before proceeding any further.
This is Just my personal opinion. Sorry for the long e-mail.
Best Regards,
Massimiliano Pala, Ph.D.
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