[cabf_validation] Revision to OU requirements

[Ryan Sleevi]

Gotcha.

Yeah, I think this is similar to the case where HMRC in the UK required
full tax identifiers in certs used as client certs, and a CA raised a
concern that logging such certificates to CT would effectively disclose
those details.

In that case, it was clear there were a number of options:
- Negotiate the use of a private CA to provide such certificates
- Use a legacy (no longer included / subject to requirements) CA
- (Specific to this case) don't log to CT

Definitely, I think the happy path here would be separating out the PKIs
used for client auth, and potentially even for server-auth. Financial
services are proof that this works out, since the vast majority of payment
processors/gateways rely on out-of-band communicated mutual TLS certs as
part of settlement processes. Despite the pain caused by the few
organizations that don't yet do that, it's certainly the more common (and
better supported) path.

On Mon, Sep 21, 2020 at 2:19 PM Jeremy Rowley <jeremy.rowley at digicert.com>
wrote:

> Oh – didn’t answer the full question. I came from the people interacting
> with the government site, so the use of the TLS as client-auth.
>
>
>
> *From:* Ryan Sleevi <sleevi at google.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, September 21, 2020 12:01 PM
> *To:* Jeremy Rowley <jeremy.rowley at digicert.com>
> *Cc:* CABforum3 <validation at cabforum.org>; Richard Smith <rich at sectigo.com
> >
> *Subject:* Re: [cabf_validation] Revision to OU requirements
>
>
>
> Can you clarify: Was this at the request of BCSS (the "server", in their
> parlance) or in the use of TLS certificates as client-auth certificates?
>
>
>
> This appears to be detailing a very specific mutual-TLS authentication
> flow, and it's unclear whether or not a browser-used CA is essential for
> this.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 21, 2020 at 1:53 PM Jeremy Rowley <jeremy.rowley at digicert.com>
> wrote:
>
> We found another program that requires OU.
>
>
>
>
> https://www.ksz.fgov.be/sites/default/files/assets/diensten_en_support/08soa_customer2bcss_nl.pdf
>
>
>
> I don’t read Dutch, but I guess the government program is rejecting
> certificates if the certificate does not contain an OU.
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Jeremy Rowley
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 2, 2020 2:29 PM
> *To:* Ryan Sleevi <sleevi at google.com>
> *Cc:* CABforum3 <validation at cabforum.org>; Richard Smith <rich at sectigo.com
> >
> *Subject:* RE: [cabf_validation] Revision to OU requirements
>
>
>
> Yeah – we wanted to see what would happen if we turned it off. So far,
> there hasn’t been  a lot of noise. This is the first one we’ve encountered.
>
>
>
> VMware generate the OU as part of the cert request to create a unique
> identifier. The tool uses that unique identifier to do the installation.
> Removing the OU is breaking the VMware install tool and causing it not to
> load the certificate. We’re reaching out to them to see if we can get them
> to update their software and stop requiring OU.
>
>
>
> *From:* Ryan Sleevi <sleevi at google.com>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 2, 2020 2:23 PM
> *To:* Jeremy Rowley <jeremy.rowley at digicert.com>
> *Cc:* CABforum3 <validation at cabforum.org>; Richard Smith <rich at sectigo.com
> >
> *Subject:* Re: [cabf_validation] Revision to OU requirements
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020 at 4:14 PM Jeremy Rowley <jeremy.rowley at digicert.com>
> wrote:
>
> We’ve been working to shut off OU completely to see if there are issues
> with doing so.  So far, we’ve found one automation tool that requires OU:
> https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2044696
>
>
>
> Thanks Jeremy! I saw DigiCert was taking a good step here, in
> https://knowledge.digicert.com/alerts/ou-removal.html , and think that's
> a model for all CAs (by virtue of the BRs)
>
>
>
> I'm hoping you can share more details about the issue there. Are you
> saying the system doesn't load a publicly-trusted certificate if it's
> missing the OU field, or merely that their tool produces CSRs with the OU
> field populated, as part of ensuring a globally unique DN?
>
>
>
> Much like past work on working out interoperable, standards-based
> approaches to IP addresses (
> https://cabforum.org/guidance-ip-addresses-certificates/ ), it'd be great
> to understand the problem more to see what options we have.
>
>
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