Re: What ASN.1 got right

[Michael Thomas <[e-mail]>]

On 3/4/21 10:48 AM, Keith Moore wrote:
> On 3/4/21 12:14 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
>
>> That's the thing: the only thing that X.509 is used for at any scale 
>> is TLS and that is definitionally online. Everything else is niche in 
>> comparison. If you need offline capability, fine, but almost nothing 
>> does anymore if it's associated with the internet in any way.
>
> I don't think that's true at all.   There are a vast number of 
> networks that are mostly disconnected from the Internet (but probably 
> do connect occasionally), but which still use Internet protocols and 
> applications.
>
> It's silly to dismiss those as if they didn't exist or weren't 
> important.  They're quite often parts of critical infrastructure.
>

Online != Internet connected. If you're using TLS you are online 
definitionally. You may be on a stub air-gapped network but you're still 
using internet protocols to communicate. That stub network can have all 
it needs to support its infrastructure. It's just as online as anything 
else. X.509 comes from a time where you couldn't even make that 
assumption. Applications that require that assumption are pretty far and 
few between these days.

Mike