[Discuss] Why the dislike of X.509?

[markw at mohawksoft.com (markw at mohawksoft.com)]

> On 8/25/2014 3:11 PM, markw at mohawksoft.com wrote:
>> *Any* security infrastructure is a central point of compromise. That's
>> the
>> nature of security. You are left with either an unmanageable mess or
>> forced to use or create some sort of infrastructure to manage it.
>
> This is a gross misrepresentation. When you have a master key, theft of
> the master key compromises the entire system. When you don't have master
> keys, theft of a key only compromises the entity associated with that key.
>
> You can have a manageable system without relying on master keys or key
> escrow. Kerberos has been doing it for decades.

Yes, but now the Kerberos system becomes your central point of
vulnerability, the argument is unchanged. You still have a central locus
vulnerable to attack.

>
>
>> ANY security system is vulnerable to bad actors that can gain access to
>> sensitive data. With a CA on openvpn, merely regenerate your master key
>> and push a new cert. When users can't connect, they have to re-validate
>> and obtain a new key.
>
> "Merely". And how, pray tell, are YOU going to know if your private root
> certificate has been compromised when X.509 lacks a mechanism to detect
> root certificate compromises?

If your system is compromised, you can be pretty sure that the attackers
will be able to erase their tracks. This is the nature of cracking. The
only way to be sure is to monitor access via an external logging system.

No security can withstand privileged access.


>
> --
> Rich P.
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