Re: [dnsext] historal root keys for upgrade path?

[Joe Abley <[e-mail]>]

On 2011-01-28, at 01:06, David Conrad wrote:

> On Jan 26, 2011, at 1:26 PM, Joe Abley wrote:
>> Wouter's earlier proposal which is mentioned elsewhere in this thread had the principle defect that its use relied upon trusting signatures made by old keys, which in general some of us thought was a poor idea (e.g. in the event that a key was rolled because it was compromised).
> 
> I don't think that's a risk. If a key is rolled because of a known compromise, it simply means you can't safely chain from the old-but-installed-key to the current-but-not-yet-installed key.  Presumably, when a key is known to be compromised, the chain from old to current keys would be broken such that automated systems would require human intervention.

That's not what the trust-history proposal was about; in that proposal every outgoing key would be used to sign a copy of its subsequent incoming key, such that any validator coming on-line from a long time in the dark would have a path to the current key, no matter what key it was using before.

Downloading the trust anchor from the XML file and finding a way to trust it does not involve signatures made by previously-used KSKs, however.


Joe