Re: Proposed clarification re "pinning" (ACTION-581)

This text change looks reasonable.

Joe

On 5/5/09 2:55 AM, "Thomas Roessler" <tlr@w3.org> wrote:

We first introduce pinning in the section on self-signed certificates, with the following language:

<p>Web user agents MAY support <termdef id="def-pinned-cert"><term>pinning</term></termdef> a self-signed certificate or more generally a certificate chain that leads to an untrusted root certificate to a particular Web site, to enable behavior based on recorded state about certificates shown previously by the same site.  Such behavior includes, e.g., warning users about changes of certificates, and not showing warning messages if a site shows a certificate consistent with previous visits.</p>

The paragraph before that briefly says what key continuity management is, and introduces the notion that web sites might do useful things with information about previously presented "bad" certificates.

I propose that we change the paragraph above as follows:

While Web user agents commonly do not implement full-fledged key continuity management, they typically offer an interaction to users which serves to associate a self-signed certificate (or more generally a certificate chain that leads to an untrusted root certificate) to a particular Web site.  This association enables behavior such as warning users about changes of certificate, or not showing warning messages if a site shows a certificate consistent with previous visits.  For the purposes of this specification, we call a self-signed certificate (or a certificate with a chain leading up to an untrusted root certificate) that has been associated with a web site by explicit user interaction <termdef id="def-pinned-cert">"<term>pinned</term>"</termdef> to that site, and the interaction "pinning."  This feature is OPTIONAL to implement under this specification.

Regards,

--
Thomas Roessler, W3C  <tlr@w3.org>