Subject: [therightkey] Omnibroker proposal

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:52:38 -0400

Attached is a paper that analyzes the current issues arising from the
Internet trust infrastructure, discusses the proposals for change and
makes a counter-proposal, the Omnibroker.

The Omnibroker may be seen either as a transitional device whose sole
function is to enable deployment of something like CT or Convergence,
a permanent fixture or both.

The key difference between the omnibroker and the other proposals is
that I don't want to commit to enforcing any particular set of new
trust requirements in the client. The feature I think worst about the
trust store approach is that it is static. We are committed to a
single approach and have no scope for maneuver when a new attack hits.

The Omnibroker is an agent chosen by the relying party (typically the
user but in an enterprise setting could be their employer). While the
Omnibroker may not be trusted to say that sites are to be trusted
without additional proof (e.g. CA statements, notary statements), the
Omnibroker can probably be trusted to warn that a site is unsafe.

If people think that the root cause of the problem with PKI trust is
the lack of an effective counterbalance to the CA then the solution
might well be to introduce a party whose sole purpose is to represent
the relying party.

The likely parties doing this work would be AV type companies,
Symantec, McAfee, Comodo etc. which are of course also CAs. But they
would not need to be the only parties involved offering service.

-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/