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Re: [lists] Re: [Full-Disclosure] Administrivia: List Compromised dueto MailmanVulnerability
- To: "Curt Purdy" <purdy@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "'Anders Langworthy'" <hades@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Valdis.Kletnieks@xxxxxx
- Subject: Re: [lists] Re: [Full-Disclosure] Administrivia: List Compromised dueto MailmanVulnerability
- From: "Jason Coombs" <jasonc@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 19:24:30 +0000 GMT
Valid ... Invalid ... Nonsense.
The only meaningful thing the engine could do is check whether the certificate
is the certificate it is supposed to be by looking at the public key contained
therein.
A public key that has never before been seen in the real world, by anyone,
anywhere, is a threat until proved otherwise. A public key that we have never
seen before should not be trusted automatically, even if somebody else has
encountered it in the past.
No change of public key should be allowed without human intervention to
rationalize the legitimacy of the change. Automated 'Valid' / 'Invalid'
determinations are absurd where there is a different public key that was
trusted instead for the same entity in the past.
We need systems that warn us of key changes and give us the opportunity to pick
up the phone or walk down the hall and find out why the entity we trust was
forced to abandon a perfectly good key pair in favor of another.
Regards,
Jason Coombs
jasonc@xxxxxxxxxxx
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