[Servercert-wg] Ballot SC-75 - Pre-sign linting

[Dimitris Zacharopoulos (HARICA)]

On 3/6/2024 12:48 μ.μ., Rob Stradling wrote:
> > the CA SHOULD implement a Linting process to test the technical 
> conformity of the Certificate to be issued with these Requirements.
>
> If a CA runs one or more linters during preissuance but chooses to 
> always completely ignore those linters' findings, can that CA claim to 
> be compliant with this (currently draft) ballot language?
>
> If so, should this ballot be more prescriptive regarding how CAs are 
> expected to handle linter findings?
>
> (For example, perhaps we could write something along the lines of "The 
> CA MUST block issuance if the linter(s) return one or more 'fatal', 
> 'error', or 'bug' findings, and SHOULD block issuance if the linter(s) 
> return one or more 'warning' findings").

I didn't want to go too much into the specifics of a "Linter" because 
this was supposed to be a technical/policy requirement and not a 
software engineering requirement. Some in-house linters may not even 
follow the logic of returning specific exit codes.

I think the requirement makes it clear that it is in the best interest 
of the CA to run effective Linting software to prevent mis-issuances and 
future security incidents. If a CA wants to run a linter which provides 
an output signalling that "something's wrong here", and the CA decides 
to ignore that warning, so be it.

With that said, I'd be happy to see if we can come up with 
technology-neutral language that can address Rob's concern. I couldn't 
come up with anything.


Dimitris.

>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Servercert-wg <servercert-wg-bounces at cabforum.org> on behalf 
> of Dimitris Zacharopoulos (HARICA) via Servercert-wg 
> <servercert-wg at cabforum.org>
> *Sent:* 20 May 2024 18:56
> *To:* CA/B Forum Server Certificate WG Public Discussion List 
> <servercert-wg at cabforum.org>
> *Subject:* [Servercert-wg] Ballot SC-75 - Pre-sign linting
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>
>   SC-75 Pre-sign linting
>
>
>     Summary
>
> There have been numerous compliance incidents publicly disclosed by 
> CAs in which they failed to comply with the technical requirements 
> described in standards associated with the issuance and management of 
> publicly-trusted TLS Certificates. However, the industry has developed 
> open-source tools, linters, that are free to use and can help CAs 
> avoid certificate misissuance. Using such linters before issuing a 
> precertificate from a Publicly-Trusted CA (pre-issuance linting) can 
> prevent the mis-issuance in a wide variety of cases.
>
> The following motion has been proposed by Dimitris Zacharopoulos of 
> HARICA and endorsed by Corey Bonnell of Digicert and Ben Wilson of 
> Mozilla.
>
> You can view the GitHub pull request representing this ballot here 
> <https://github.com/cabforum/servercert/pull/518>.
>
>
>     Motion Begins
>
> MODIFY the "Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of 
> Publicly-Trusted TLS Server Certificates" based on Version 2.0.4 as 
> specified in the following redline:
>
>   * https://github.com/cabforum/servercert/compare/049237e096650fe01f67780b7c24bd5211ee3038...ada5d6e0db76b32be28d64edd7b0677bbef9c2f5
>     <https://github.com/cabforum/servercert/compare/049237e096650fe01f67780b7c24bd5211ee3038...ada5d6e0db76b32be28d64edd7b0677bbef9c2f5>
>
>
>
>     Motion Ends
>
> This ballot proposes a Final Maintenance Guideline. The procedure for 
> approval of this ballot is as follows:
>
>
>         Discussion (at least 7 days)
>
>   * Start time: 2024-05-20 18:00:00 UTC
>   * End time: on or after 2024-05-27 18:00:00 UTC
>
>
>         Vote for approval (7 days)
>
>   * Start time: TBD
>   * End time: TBD
>
>
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