Re: [pkix] Unclear public-key certificate definition in X.509

["Kyle Hamilton" <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 4:38 PM, Tom Gindin <[e-mail]> wrote:
>        It no longer has the problem which it had before.  Of course, it's
> a little odd to describe a certificate as a function of specifically the
> DN of the issuer, since the critical functional dependency is on the
> issuer's key pair.

The original X.509 use-case was that the Directory was everything, that everything could be Distinguishably Named, and that the Distinguished Name was the correct indexing system.  The problem is that the original designers hadn't had the experience of a decade of nearly universal worldwide deployment, with the format being extended into realms it was never intended to go.

Perhaps X.509 could be formally decoupled from X.500, or (much like ASN.1) the data format and semantics could be moved to a different standard while the DIT bindings remain in X.509.

> The CA(A) expression just confuses me, because it suggests that the CA is
> a function of the subject name.

Unfortunately, the original designers appear to have not thought about what would happen if you had a DN collision with multiple certificates and keys.

The key to the lock is unique, which means that it also meets the requirement to be a database key.  The key is the key; the binding and all the rest is just metadata.

-Kyle H