[Servercert-wg] Discussion Begins for Ballot SC46: Sunset the CAA exception for DNS operator

[Ryan Sleevi]

This email begins the discussion period for Ballot SC46: Sunset the CAA
exception for DNS operator

Purpose of Ballot:

This Ballot addresses security issues with Section 3.2.2.8 regarding CAA
checking.

Currently, Section 3.2.2.8 permits a CA to bypass CAA checking if the CA or
an Affiliate of the CA is the DNS Operator. This term is referred to
through RFC 7719, and involves a precise technical definition regarding how
a zone's authoritative servers are configured and expressed (e.g. NS
records). While this allows a CA to skip looking up the CAA record, it does
not absolve them of the need to look up these other records on every
issuance.

As practiced by CAs, this has clearly caused some confusion. For example,
some CAs have incorrectly implemented policies that determine they're
authoritative based on self-assertion that they are authoritative, which is
not consistent with the current requirements.

To avoid these issues, this sunsets the CAA exception on 2021-07-01 for the
DNS Operator, simplifying the requirements and reducing ambiguities for CAs
performing validation.

The following motion has been proposed by Ryan Sleevi of Google and
endorsed by Ben Wilson of Mozilla and Jacob Hoffman-Andrews of ISRG/Let's
Encrypt.

It can be viewed on GitHub as
https://github.com/cabforum/servercert/pull/271

-- MOTION BEGINS --

This ballot modifies the “Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and
Management of Publicly-Trusted Certificates” (“Baseline Requirements”),
based on Version 1.7.4:

MODIFY the Baseline Requirements as specified in the following Redline:

https://github.com/cabforum/servercert/compare/47248d77d371356780b08cfa971b26d88d704ca8..6d34b1d51f645912d2237d5d4b46f4a49e8352ed

-- MOTION ENDS --

This ballot proposes a Final Maintenance Guideline.

The procedure for approval of this ballot is as follows:

Discussion (7+ days)

Start Time: 2021-05-13 20:00:00 UTC
End Time: TBD

Vote for approval (7 days)

Start Time: TBD
End Time: TBD
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