The state-level attack on the SSL CA security model

Fri Mar 25 16:19:52 UTC 2011

One could argue that you could try something like the facebook model (or facebook itself). I can see it coming.
Facebook web of trust app ;-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu [mailto:Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu] 
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 9:05 AM
To: Akyol, Bora A
Cc: Dobbins, Roland; nanog group
Subject: Re: The state-level attack on the SSL CA security model

On Fri, 25 Mar 2011 08:36:12 PDT, "Akyol, Bora A" said:
> Is it far fetched to supplement the existing system with a reputation 
> based  model such as PGP? I apologize if this was discussed before.

That would be great, if you could ensure the following:

1) That Joe Sixpack actually knows enough somebodies who are trustable to sign stuff. (If Joe doesn't know them, then it's not a web of trust, it's just the same old CA).

2) That Joe Sixpack doesn't blindly sign stuff himself (I've had to on occasion scrape unknown signatures off my PGP key on the keyservers, when people I've never heard of before have signed my key "just because somebody they recognized signed it").

The PGP model doesn't work for users who are used to clicking everything they see, whether or not they really should...