Subject: Re: [websec] Certificate Pinning via HSTS (.txt version)

From: =JeffH <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:33:43 -0700

StPeter said..
 >
 > On 9/12/11 5:53 PM, =JeffH wrote:
 >>> Chris Evans and I work at Google on the Chrome security team. We have
 >>> devised this specification for a new extension to Strict Transport
 >>> Security to allow site operators to "pin" certificates: UAs will
 >>> require that TLS connections be validated with at least one of the
 >>> public keys identified in the new "pins" directive in the HSTS header.
 >>> (Sites can pin to one or more public keys in end entity, subordinate
 >>> CA, and/or root CA certificates, for flexibility and disaster
 >>> recovery.)
 >>>
 >>> We hope that this mechanism opens up the benefits of certificate
 >>> pinning to more sites. Currently, Chrome can "pre-load" HSTS behavior
 >>> and certificate pins for sites, but the mechanism for doing this
 >>> (email us!) does not scale.
 >>>
 >>> We eagerly anticipate your comments, questions, concerns, et c. As you
 >>> can see from the Ideas section, there are some unanswered questions
 >>> about the behavior of UAs and hosts, and possible extensions to the
 >>> policy.
 >>
 >> This is great, thanks for posting this here.
 >>
 >> I have various comments on it I'll try to get to in the next day or so.
 >>
 >> During HSTS's gestation, various parties have discussed potential
 >> "LockCA" and "LockEV" directives ostensibly having similar semantics to
 >> what you've proposed here (see talk slides from last few websec sessions
 >> at IETF meetings). (though I think recent events pretty much obviate
 >> those nominal ideas because they'd relied on the resilience of one's CA
 >> and the CA infrastructure (oops))
 >
 > <hat type='individual'/>
 >
 > Jeff, why do you say that? It seems to me that if you think various CAs
 > are dodgy or vulnerable, but you know and like the policies of the CA
 > you're using, you might well want to lock into that CA.

yes, such a decision is more nuanced than I quickly painted it above. There's a 
number of trade-offs between "locking" / "pinning" to a CA, intermediates, end 
entity cert/key.

=JeffH