Re: ACTION-13: Elaborate on multiple certificates & domains for session servers case

"Close, Tyler J." <tyler.close@hp.com>, 2006-11-20 21:52 -0600:

> For ACTION-13: Elaborate on multiple certificates & domains for session
> servers case
> 
> A user has a relationship with a legal entity like a person, or a
> company, not with a domain name.
[...]

Just as a point of clarification: I don't know if a person is
normally considered a "legal entity" in the way the word is used
in law. In the way I usually see it used a least, "legal entity"
most often refers to an organization that's recognized by a
government as having some legal existence as an individual entity;
basically, a corporation (or equivalent of a corporation in
whatever jurisdiction that organization is recognized in).

In that sense, there are some classes of businesses that are not
government-recognized legal entities: sole proprietorships,
partnerships, and other kinds of unincorporated organizations.
They aren't really true companies in the sense that they can be
separated from the people running them -- they're simply a person
or persons "doing business as" as a certain name.

It may be an important distinction to make in security discussions,
because with regard to fraud protection, if there is a need to
identify/verify the association between organization and the business
name and domain name that it uses, the existence of the business
as a corporation (or similarly government-recognized legal entity
in a particular jurisdiction) provides a clear way to do that (which
existence as a sole proprietor or partnership does not).

  --Mike