[cabfpub] [EXTERNAL] The purpose of the CA/B Forum

Mon Oct 21 17:09:01 UTC 2019

+1 Dimitris.  As the immediate past Chair of the Forum and someone involved in creating the Forum in 2005, your analysis below is correct.

From: Public <public-bounces at cabforum.org> On Behalf Of Dimitris Zacharopoulos via Public
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2019 8:54 AM
To: public at cabforum.org
Subject: [EXTERNAL][cabfpub] The purpose of the CA/B Forum

WARNING: This email originated outside of Entrust Datacard.
DO NOT CLICK links or attachments unless you trust the sender and know the content is safe.
________________________________

Dear CA/B Forum Members,

Recent posts [1], [2] were brought to my attention with a statement from a representative of a Certificate Consumer Member who believes that the role of the Forum is the following:

"The Forum provides a venue to ensure Browsers do not place conflicting requirements on CAs that voluntarily participate within the browsers root programs, by facilitating discussion and feedback. This allows interoperability among the Web PKI space, which refers to the set of CAs within browsers, and thus allows easier interoperability within browsers. Prior to the Forum, it was much easier to see this reflected in the private arrangements between CAs and browsers. If different browsers had different requirements, CAs would have to act as the intermediary to identify and communicate those conflicts. Similarly, browsers had to spend significant effort working to communicate with all of the CAs in their programs, often repeatedly answering similar questions. By arranging a common mailing list, and periodic meetings, those barriers to communication can be reduced.

That is the sole and only purpose of the Forum. Any other suggestion is ahistorical and not reflected in the past or present activities."

We should not interpret silence as consent for such statements that can create misunderstandings. I put a lot of thought before posting this message because I represent a CA but I was also voted as Chair to ensure the Bylaws are followed. I personally don’t agree with that view of the purpose of the Forum (or the statement that any other suggestion is ahistorical), and I think other members disagree as well. As Chair of the Forum, I feel obligated to share some thoughts and my perspective about the purpose of the Forum.

When I first learned about the CA/B Forum and started receiving the public list emails, I was thrilled with the level of engagement, participation and contributions of industry leaders in the publicly-trusted certificate sector. Industry leaders, that made SSL/TLS and Code Signing Certificates known and usable around the Globe in order to secure communications and code execution, were voluntarily contributing with their valuable technical and operational experience. When critical incidents occurred that affected a large part of the webPKI, industry leaders freely shared their internal security policies/practices, so that others could publicly evaluate and use them. When it was decided for Domain Validation methods to be disclosed, Certificate Issuers disclosed their methods and the less secure methods were identified and removed. Some of the Forum's popular projects, such as the EV Guidelines and the Network Security Requirements, were driven by Certificate Issuers and were not directly linked to Certificate Consumer's Root program policies; they are now required by Root programs. This industry continues to improve Guidelines and overall security by continuously raising the security bar. It is natural for Certificate Consumers to lead and push for stricter rules but Certificate Issuers also participate in these discussions and contribute with ideas. These contributions are not made "to make Browsers happy" but to improve the overall security of the ecosystem.

Mistakes happened, CAs were distrusted but that has nothing to do with the CA/B Forum. We are not here at the Forum to judge how CAs complied or not to the Guidelines or how strict or not the Browser decisions were. In my understanding these are out of CA/B Forum scope discussions. To my eyes, every contribution to the Forum is done in good faith, reviewed by some of the world's most talented and competent people I know and they are accepted into the work product of the Forum, which is our Guidelines. It is also very clear that our Guidelines need continuous improvements and it is very possible that some requirements are mis-interpretated. We are here to remove ambiguities and make these requirements as clear as possible.

I have no doubt that the CA/B Forum serves the "undocumented" purpose of aligning requirements between Certificate Consumer Policies, although it is not stated in the Forum's Bylaws. Perhaps this is how things started with the Forum. I don't know, I wasn't there :) But I believe things have evolved. I strongly believe that the CA/B Forum is an earnest effort by the publicly-trusted certificate industry to self-regulate in the absence of other National or International regulatory Authorities. These efforts to self-regulate exceed the purpose for Root Programs to align. After all, if that was the sole and only purpose, it might as well have been the "Browser Forum" where Browsers meet, set the common rules and then dictate CAs to follow these rules. I believe the Forum is more than that.

It is fortunate that we are given the opportunity to take a step back and re-check why we are all here. I can only quote from the Bylaws (emphasis mine):

"1.1 Purpose of the Forum

The Certification Authority Browser Forum (CA/Browser Forum) is a voluntary gathering of leading Certificate Issuers and vendors of Internet browser software and other applications that use certificates (Certificate Consumers).

Members of the CA/Browser Forum have worked closely together in defining the guidelines and means of implementation for best practices as a way of providing a heightened security for Internet transactions and creating a more intuitive method of displaying secure sites to Internet users."

I read this purpose as an "unofficial" agreement between Certificate Issuers and Certificate Consumers to improve security for internet transactions AND to create a more intuitive method of displaying secure sites to internet users. I have only been involved in the Forum for the last couple of years and although I see a lot of effort to improve security policies/practicies (as demonstrated in all the updates of the BRs, EVGs, NetSec guidelines), there are no documented efforts for the purpose of creating a more intuitive method of displaying secure sites to Internet users.

Setting this aside, I believe we either need to agree that the purpose of the Forum, as described in the Bylaws, is incorrect and update the Bylaws, or to take a step back and consider all that the Forum has accomplished over the last years with the Contributions of its Members, Associate Members, Interested Parties, even non-Members, and work collaboratively, in good faith to make further progress.

Looking back at my notes during a presentation at the F2F 46 meeting in Cupertino, I mentioned:

"Forum members should exercise their participation in a neutral way as much as possible. We are here to create and improve guidelines and we need to be able to do that with more participation and consensus. Some members feel “exposed” during Forum discussions. All members must have a more “neutral” behavior in the CA/B Forum discussions around guidelines. We welcome more contributions from Certificate Issuers in order to understand real cases and improve overall security". I do not recall hearing any objections to this statement, but that was perhaps because members were very polite :-)

I'm afraid this cannot be achieved if Certificate Consumer Members continuously bring their "guns" (i.e. Root Program Requirements) in CA/B Forum discussions. I would expect these "guns" to be displayed and used in the independent Root Program venues and not the CA/B Forum.

I would personally feel very disappointed (as the CA/B Forum Chair) if we were to re-purpose of the Forum to match the statement at the beginning of this email. In any case, I would like to give the opportunity for members to publicly express their opinion about the purpose of the Forum and especially the Server Certificate Working Group. I also understand and respect if some Members are reluctant to publicly state their opinion.

Dimitris.
CA/B Forum and Server Certificate Working Group Chair

[1] https://cabforum.org/pipermail/validation/2019-September/001326.html
[2] https://cabforum.org/pipermail/servercert-wg/2019-October/001171.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cabforum.org/pipermail/public/attachments/20191021/73c072fd/attachment-0002.html>