[cabfpub] Proposed new ballot on IP Addresses in SANs

[Jody Cloutier]

Ryan, I'm not sure I understand why Google is so intent on this new course of public shaming on this matter and others currently under discussion, but if it helps to do the right thing, then fine. The fact is that the requirement was not addressed, and we need to figure out how to fix the issue for all of our customers. Microsoft has addressed this in Windows 10, but we are not currently planning on back-porting this change to previous operating systems. As such, this change is needed or all of our customers will be affected.

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From: public-bounces at cabforum.org <public-bounces at cabforum.org> on behalf of Ryan Sleevi <sleevi at google.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2016 9:37 AM
To: Rick Andrews
Cc: public at cabforum.org
Subject: Re: [cabfpub] Proposed new ballot on IP Addresses in SANs



On Sat, Apr 16, 2016 at 9:31 AM, Rick Andrews <Rick_Andrews at symantec.com<mailto:Rick_Andrews at symantec.com>> wrote:
I disagree with the tone that CAs are entirely to blame here.

Why? I provided you evidence on how you could have issued such certificates without violating the BRs.

The fact that you:
1) Seemingly did not attempt to discover this yourself
2) If you did attempt, were unable to, and did not seek for outside input
3) When you did receive outside input, ignored it
4) Have continued to argue that it's necessary, without providing any response in over 8 months show that it isn't

Shows that the CAs doing this ARE entirely to blame.

The BRs are baseline requirements, and browser vendors often say that they have the right to impose additional requirements above and beyond the BRs. When that happens, though, it sometimes puts CAs in a bind.

And by a bind, it means you'd like to do something, but can't, besides browsers say you shouldn't. That isn't a bind - that's how security works. You can't be simultaneously trusted to be the bastion of online security while also engaging in insecure practices. That isn't how trust works.

This is a case in which the BRs say we can't do something, but one browser vendor says we can.

I'd love to hear that from Jody, given the evidence.

Ideally, Microsoft would have recognized this back before the BRs were adopted, and addressed it in their platform or lobbied to rewrite the requirement.

"And addressed it in their platform" - but they did, as you yourself have said. Windows 10 addressed this.

But that didn't happen. We're trying to rectify the situation now.

You're not trying to rectify it. If you were, you would have explored 8 months ago what I proposed, and reported back to the Forum why it wasn't viable.

And let's be clear here: there's a big difference between "not viable" (e.g. it doesn't work) and "not desirable" (e.g. our customers or we have to do more work). Given the role that CAs play in the online trust ecosystem, the goal is not to enable every business desire a CA has, nor to encourage or bless every practice that violates standards. It's to make a balanced tradeoff between risk, reward, and standards. I have seen no evidence of good-faith effort on your part in the past 8 months to strike that balance, because if there had been, the line of reasoning for this change wouldn't be what you're presently arguing.

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