[ietf-enroll] Charter / mutual enrollment?

Russ Housley housley at vigilsec.com
Thu May 8 15:58:20 EDT 2003


Max:

I understand your points, and it may not be possible to separate these 
completely.  One also needs to consider the SSH model, where the public key 
is provided on the first transaction.  Once you have the public key, you 
know that you are talking to the same party, even if it is not the right 
party.  This forces the attacker to be involved from the very beginning or 
be locked out forever.

Russ

At 08:48 AM 5/7/2003 -0700, Max Pritikin wrote:

>Getting 'trust points' configured into clients is covered in the
>introduction model (You all feel free to tell me when you give in
><grin>) and is why I started with discussions of bidirectional
>introduction.
>
>Take the sequence of events between software A, device B, and
>certificate authority, C:
>
>1) administrator uses software A to configure B to start an enrollment
>with B.
>
>2) first step of enrollment is to get C's public key (the 'trust point'
>in this context) onto B. The key can be pulled directly from C but then
>the admin must use A to tell B it is the right key. Alternatively user
>on A can push the entire key from A to B.
>
>This is an example of leveraging the trust relationship between A and B
>to introduce C to B.
>
>(The other half of the exchange is where the administrator uses A to
>introduce B to C. In today's world the administrator might use a
>different A (e.g. A1), but in either case they use a tool for this. In
>my original email on the thread I argue that A and A1 are all tools of
>the admin and can be concidered one system for the model. Implementation
>is free to design as complex a tool as needed.)
>
>         - max
>
>
>On Tue, 2003-05-06 at 23:14, Russ Housley wrote:
> > Bill:
> >
> > I am quite aware of this issue.  And, in fact I am doing some work in this
> > area for a customer.
> >
> > I feel that enrollment is a much larger problem that is keeping people 
> from
> > using the security protocols that already exist.  Thus, solving the
> > enrollment problem is of paramount importance.  I would really like to get
> > this work going with the more limited scope.  If we find that the two are
> > more intertwined than expected, then it is not too difficult to extend the
> > charter.
> >
> > No one has requested a BOF slot for the meeting in Vienna yet ....
> >
> > Russ
> >
> > At 08:33 PM 5/6/2003 -0400, Bill Sommerfeld wrote:
> > >So, one missing link somewhere (perhaps here, perhaps not) is the other
> > >direction -- how to get 'trust points' configured into clients
> > >with minimal fuss and muss...
> > >
> > >We all know that compiling them into apps has Issues..
> > >
> > >seems like it would be best to handle both directions in the same
> > >place.
> > >
> > >                                                 - Bill
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > ietf-enroll at mit.edu
> > https://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/ietf-enroll



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