RE: ACTION 181: Summary of EV certificate discussion, prototype recommendation

I think that first we have to separate the issue of subject and issuer icons
 
As far as I am concerned any issuer that is not prepared to put their own brand on their EV certs shouldn't be issuing them.
 
Issues such as ambiguity and possible confusion are of course vital here. It does not follow that the EV process needs to be the sole means of addressing these issues however. There is an existing legal infrastructure to deal with those issues. What is critical here is whether or not a certificate holder is or is not within the reach of that legal infrastructure, whether there is accountability.
 
To paraphrase Judge Hands here: A criminal is unlikely to attack an infrastructure if the expected reward is less than the cost of making the attack plus the cost of getting caught times the probability of being caught.
 
We limit the expected reward using efficient revocation. I would be more than happy to accept a tight constraint on freshness of recocation data (OCSP with TTL of 30 minutes or so). 
 
We engineer a situation where the cost of reducing the chance of being caught to an acceptable level renders the attack uneconomic.
 
 
Ambiguity is in many ways less of an issue where brands are concerned than in the context of a subject name. There are multiple companies that trade under the name 'Prince' but their logos are rather less likely to be ambiguous than their domain name. 
 


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	From: michael.mccormick@wellsfargo.com [mailto:michael.mccormick@wellsfargo.com] 
	Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 1:47 PM
	To: Hallam-Baker, Phillip; public-wsc-wg@w3.org
	Subject: RE: ACTION 181: Summary of EV certificate discussion, prototype recommendation
	
	
	Hi Phil,
	 
	I'm glad we agree about favicons.  I readily concede X.509 logos are more secure than favicons.  However, unless there is a central authority and process in place to ensure no two sites use visually similar or indistinguishable images in their EV certificates, these logos should not be relied upon as identity cues.
	 
	My reason for bringing this up is I've become aware many EV issuers and RPs are planning to use these logos for branding and identity assurance purposes.
	 
	Mike

________________________________

	From: Hallam-Baker, Phillip [mailto:pbaker@verisign.com] 
	Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 12:35 PM
	To: McCormick, Mike; public-wsc-wg@w3.org
	Subject: RE: ACTION 181: Summary of EV certificate discussion, prototype recommendation
	
	
	Well naturally I totaly disagree with the second recommendation.
	 
	If the issuer has taken appropriate steps to authenticate certificate subject information and there are approriate accountability controls it is appropriate to display it. 
	 
	And the certificate issuer can surely be trusted to authenticate their own brand information. 
	 
	A favicon is objectionable because it is not authenticated and the use is not accountable. Favicons are not intended to be an authentication cue, are not secured as such but are easily confused as being so. An authenticated logotype is explicitly intended for that purpose and the issuing controls governing their use are designed to ensure that the level of security is appropriate.
	 
	 
	But since the recommendation does not mention logotype information at all and it did not come up in the conversation I don't see where the justification for a prohibition would be.
	 
	
	

________________________________

		From: michael.mccormick@wellsfargo.com [mailto:michael.mccormick@wellsfargo.com] 
		Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 1:20 PM
		To: public-wsc-wg@w3.org
		Cc: Hallam-Baker, Phillip
		Subject: RE: ACTION 181: Summary of EV certificate discussion, prototype recommendation
		
		
		This is excellent.  I'd like to propose a couple minor additions to Phil's recommendation:
		 
		1. Web clients MUST verify revocation status of the EV certificate and associated CA certificates as a precondition for displaying a positive security signal.  Web clients SHOULD use OCSP protocol to perform this check if it is available from the certificate issuer.
		 
		2. Web sites and certificate issuers SHOULD NOT use X.509 logographic extensions to visually brand EV certificates.  Web clients SHOULD NOT display logos attached to EV certificates.
		 
		Rationale:
		 
		1. It is critical to the credibility & trustworthiness of EV SSL that compromised certificates can be revoked, and that revocation prevents web clients from signaling positively.
		 
		2. See my earlier email about favicons.  My reasons for mistrusting certificate logos are essentially the same: They are mistakenly viewed as identity cues or security context signals by most users, which makes them easily exploitable.  Also they blur the distinction between chrome and content.
		 
		Thanks, Mike
		 
		P.S. In interest of full disclosure, Wells Fargo is a member of the CAB Forum and will likely be a commercial issuer of EV SSL certificates.

________________________________

		From: public-wsc-wg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-wsc-wg-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Hallam-Baker, Phillip
		Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 9:52 AM
		To: public-wsc-wg@w3.org
		Subject: ACTION 181: Summary of EV certificate discussion, prototype recommendation
		
		
		Extended Validation (EV) Certificates are X.509v3 certificates that are issued in accordance with minimum authentication criteria defined by the CA-Browser Forum, as demonstrated by a Web Trust audit of the issuer. 

		When certain browsers (currently IE7 with the anti-phishing filter enabled or Firefox with a plug-in) visit a site secured with SSL and an EV certificate an enhanced user experience is presented. Currently in IE7 this user experience consists of the address bar turning green and the certificate subject and issuer being displayed alternately next to the address bar. Advertising and User education programs for EV certificates frequently use phrases such as 'Green for Go'.

		The current CAB-Forum criteria are specified at: http://www.cabforum.org/EV_Certificate_Guidelines.pdf

		The core principle of EV certificates is to assure the relying party that there is accountability. The EV issuing criteria require a certificate issuer to verify that the organization specified in the certificate subject exists as a legal entity, that the physical contact address is valid, that the party making the application is authorized to do so by the specified subject, that the applicant has control of the domain name specified in the certificate and that the applicant has possession of the private key corresponding to the specified public key.

		If the issuance process should fail the certificate issuer is to be held accountable, hence the display of the issuer name in the EV security experience.

		An EV certificate does not guarantee that a vendor selling a $3000 plasma TV will deliver a product that works or even that the TV will be delivered at all. But an EV certificate does guarantee that either the vendor can be held accountable for the default or the certificate issuer held accountable for the failure of their authentication program.

		In addition to requiring minimum authentication standards and a WebTrust audit, the CABForum guidelines require CAs to implement certain technical measures. Certificates must conform to a specific profile of the X.509v3 and PKIX standards. Wildcard certificates are not permitted, the maximum validity interval is one year, a means of efficient revocation must be supported and certain minimum key sizes must be employed. These measures are generally consistent with community consensus amongst network security specialists.

		Although the EV guidelines do not mandate support for publication of status information by OCSP, accountability of the certificate issuer creates a significant incentive to do so. 

		While EV certificates are designed to be compatible with the existing deployed base of browsers the use of EV makes use of certain protocol extensions which are already highly desirable to be even more desirable. In particular support for the certificate host identification extension and OCSP token stapling. 

		Although the EV security experience in IE7 is designed to resist certain types of attack it is impossible to provide absolute guarantees of security on a platform that is not considered trustworthy. For example the IE7 does not allow users to add EV signing certificates to the root store. IE7 only presents the EV security experience if a root certificate that is countersigned by a Certificate Trust List signed by an offline root. An attacker can only circumvent this requirement by compromising the IE7 executable.

		Prototype recommendation:

		Web clients SHOULD present a distinctive user experience in response to presentation of an EV certificate. Such a user experience SHOULD be guarded against emulation by browser content. The certificate subject and issuer SHOULD be displayed in the primary user experience.

		In order to facilitate accessibility such a user experience SHOULD NOT use color alone, although if color is used the color green SHOULD NOT be used EXCEPT to indicate a positive condition and the color red SHOULD NOT be used except to indicate a negative condition.

		In order to reduce the consuption of IPv4 addresses Web Clients SHOULD support the TLS host name identification extension on all SSL/TLS transactions regardless of whether an EV certificate is presented or not.

		For efficiency, Web Clients SHOULD support the OCSP token stapling extension of TLS on all SSL/TLS transactions regardless of whether an EV certificate is presented or not.