X.509 support in ssh (revisited)

[Nicolas Williams]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2002 at 12:03:35PM -0600, mouring at etoh.eviladmin.org wrote:
> What an utter joke.  CAs give you warm fuzzy feelings.  Not much more.
> Just because some CAs 'claims' to have signed a key does not mean much
> (Refer to the forged signatures of Microsoft due to a stupid Versign
> employee that happened last year).

It is not a joke when you control the CA and use this in an intranet. In
such a situation it's no more a joke than is Kerberos.

Key distribution is always the problem to solve in cryptography.

> This has been heavily discussed in alot of security groups.  It was a very
> hot topic when Microsoft did not include a lot of the smaller CAs vendors
> that appeared and people started complaining about being prompted for such
> verifications when they dished out money for a 'trusted CA'.
> 
> As I said.. from a trust view.. it is a total and utter joke.

You have to know who you trust. Do you trust the piece of paper called a
driver's license or passport or whatever that someone might present to
you during a transaction to prove that they are who they say they are?
Do you trust the issuer of that piece of paper? Ultimately you make an
estimate of the trustworthiness of such things - this is why the local
dept. or motor vehicles requires several id documents from different
origins to accept your identity.

In an intranet, I trust the CA.


> - Ben


Cheers,

Nico
--
-DISCLAIMER: an automatically appended disclaimer may follow. By posting-
-to a public e-mail mailing list I hereby grant permission to distribute-
-and copy this message.-

Visit our website at http://www.ubswarburg.com

This message contains confidential information and is intended only 
for the individual named.  If you are not the named addressee you 
should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail.  Please 
notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this 
e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system.

E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free 
as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, 
arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses.  The sender therefore 
does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents 
of this message which arise as a result of e-mail transmission.  If 
verification is required please request a hard-copy version.  This 
message is provided for informational purposes and should not be 
construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any securities or 
related financial instruments.