Microsoft deems all DigiNotar certificates untrustworthy, releases

Mon Sep 12 21:51:04 UTC 2011

fredrik danerklint <fredan-nanog at fredan.se> wrote:
>
> and how about a end user, who doesn't understand a computer at all, to
> be able verify the signatures, correctly?

The current trust model for DNSSEC relies on the vendor of the validator
to bootstrap trust in the root key. This is partly a matter of pragmatism
since the validator is a black-box agent acting on the user's behalf, like
any other software.

It is also required by the root key management policies, since a root key
rollover takes a small number of weeks, much shorter than the
not-in-service shelf life of validating software and hardware. This means
that a validator cannot simply use the root key as a trust anchor and
expect to work: it needs some extra infrastructure supported by the vendor
to authenticate the root key if there happens to have been a rollover
between finalizing the software and deploying it.

Tony.
-- 
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