Re: [pkix] X.509 client certificates on Web - Deprecated by Google

[Anders Rundgren <[e-mail]>]

On 2015-09-03 10:35, Yoav Nir wrote:
> Hi, Anders.
>
> I think at least the title of this message is misleading. Google is not
 > deprecating client certificates. They’re deprecating the keygen attribute
 > in forms (which could be used in enrollment, but there are other ways).
>
> These are very different things.

I have followed these discussions in other contexts but I believe that the subject
line properly reflects the following words by the Google spokesman:

 >> While a use case exists for provisioning TLS client certificates for authentication,
 >> such a use case is inherently user-hostile for usability, and represents an authentication
 >> scheme that does not work well for the web.

A more interesting discussion is, how did we end up here?

IMO, Google have come to a logical conclusion. For example, if you insert an empty
PKI-card in a machine running the leading desktop OS, typically nothing happens!

FIDO U2F tokens OTOH are (or will be) usable as is.  Unlike traditional smart
cards FIDO tokens does not require a unique driver that some obscure third-party
is supposed to supply and maintain over OS/browser generations.

That is, it is not FIDO alliance that won due to a superior concept, but
the USG + MSFT who never managed creating a useful product that also could
work for other people than a handful of rather deep-pocketed governments.

Anders

>
> Yoav
>
>> On Sep 3, 2015, at 7:40 AM, Anders Rundgren <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>> https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink-dev/pX5NbX0Xack/discussion
>>
>> "While a use case exists for provisioning TLS client certificates for authentication,
>> such a use case is inherently user-hostile for usability, and represents an authentication
>>  scheme that does not work well for the web. An alternative means for addressing this use case is to employ the work of the FIDO Alliance [12], which has strong positive signals from Microsoft and Google (both in the WG), is already supported via extensions in Chrome [13], with Mozilla evaluating support via similar means [14]. This offers a more meaningful way to offer strong, non-phishable authentication, in a manner that is more privacy preserving, offers a better user experience, better standards support, and more robust security capabilities"
>>
>> W3C.org spokesmen are now speaking the same language:
>> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2015Sep/0011.html
>>
>> "There have been several high-profile attacks on client certificates (see
>> for example "Triple Hand-shake" [1]) that make client certificates a not
>> suitable for authentication systems. X.509 is also problematic to parse,
>> leading to security issues [2]. While FIDO is not perfect (the privacy
>> community needs to look at the channel ID work too), its definitely best of
>> breed right now and I think will solve your use-case over the course of the
>> next year"
>>
>> -- Anders
>>
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>