561024 - Require disclosure of the identities of external private sub-CAs

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(CA Program :: CA Certificate Root Program, task)

Description

[Matt McCutchen]

Current Mozilla policies do not require root CAs to disclose the identities of their external private sub-CAs:

https://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.security.policy/msg/9697d2385a5884e8

The policies should be changed to require this disclosure because users need the information in order to make their own decision of whether to trust a root CA, as it has been repeatedly stated that it is their duty to do.  This is being discussed in mozilla.dev.security.policy:

https://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.security.policy/msg/e0f4b04a2565f3a5
https://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.security.policy/msg/2cc053e61ffaa2e9
https://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.security.policy/msg/9ab28e7420a393c9

I an entering a bug so that the issue is not forgotten and to serve as a target for voting.

Comment 1

[David E. Ross]

When a certificate authority uses its root certificate to sign an intermediate certificate that will have only third-party, private use, I can understand business reasons for not disclosing the customer's identity.  On the other hand, such an intermediate certificate could then become a profit center for the third party if that entity decides to enter the certificate market as a vendor.  

I would rather see the policy exclude any root certificates that have signed certificates for third-party, private use.  That would eliminate any need to disclose the identity of a non-vendor while also eliminating the risk from a third-party, private user becoming a non-verified vendor.

Comment 2

[David E. Ross]

My second paragraph should instead read:  

I would rather see the policy exclude any root certificates that might be used to sign intermediate certificates for third-party, private use.  The certificate authority's CP/CPS should explicitly reject the signing of such intermediate certificates.  That would eliminate any need to disclose the identity of a non-vendor while also eliminating the risk from a third-party, private user becoming a non-verified vendor chaining up to a root certificate in the NSS database.  This should not prevent the certificate authority from having additional root certificates specifically for signing intermediate certificates for third-party, private use; those additional root certificates simply will not be in the NSS database.

Comment 3

[Matt McCutchen]

I didn't intend to move the discussion here from the newsgroup.  The Mozilla community seems to prefer that discussion of issues like this one occur in newsgroups.

Comment 4

[Kathleen Wilson]

See:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA:SubordinateCAcerts
https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA:SalesforceCommunity
https://github.com/mozilla/pkipolicy/issues/9

Comment 5

[David E. Ross]

None of the Web pages cited in comment #4 address "external private sub-CAs".  How then is this bug report closed?

Comment 6

[Kathleen Wilson]

Mozilla currently requires disclosure of non-technically-constrained subCAs, as described here:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA:SalesforceCommunity#Which_intermediate_certificate_data_should_CAs_add_to_Salesforce.3F

I do not have plans to require more than that, so changing this bug to wontfix.

However, there is discussion ongoing in the mozilla.dev.security.policy forum, debating whether technically-constrained subCAs must also be disclosed.