Subject: Re: Registering a Certificate Policy OID

From: [email-masked] (Peter Gutmann)
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 06:50:02 (NZDT)

Russ Housley <[email-masked]> writes:

>In most countries, the national standards association maintains an OID
>registry.  As with the ANSI arc, these are generally arcs assigned under the
>OID 2.16.  It may take some investigation to find the OID authority for a
>particular country.

I think you need to put that "some" into perspective, it's like saying "We can
cure world hunger, but it'll take some work" :-).  In some cases you can
eventually find someone responsible and they may or may not deign to allocate
you an OID, in many you'll end up on a long wild goose chase without getting
anywhere ("The last person who knew how this worked retired 10 years ago"), and
in at least one case you'll end up as the new registration authority ("We have
no idea who's supposed to do this, would you like the job?").

>The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) assigns private enterprise
>numbers, which are OIDs, in the arc 1.3.6.1.4.1.  IANA has assigned arcs to
>over 7,500 companies to date.

This is really the only practical way for the average person/organisation to
get an OID.  It's quick and easy to do.

Peter.