RE: Online Certificate Revocation Protocol

["Carlin Covey" <[e-mail]>]

[Bob Jueneman]:

Indeed, although some have deprecated the concept of a private key validity
period, it makes a great deal of sense to DELIBERATELY destroy a given
signature key, especially a code or certificate signing key, well before the
corresponding certificate expires.  From the point of view of the
certificate subscriber, this minimizes his risk by making certain that the
key can NOT be compromised, yet the certificate has not expired or been
revoked, so the certificate will continue to validate properly.

[Carlin Covey]:

I agree with Bob.  It might even be desirable to use "one-time" signature
keys for signing particularly important documents, such as major contracts,
wills, etc.   There might even be a "super non-repudiation" policy
associated with the guaranteed destruction of the signature private key.
This might be implemented via some trusted hardware token that generates the
keypair, signs the document, destroys the private key, and signs a
notification of private key destruction.  Another possibility is some sort
of trusted "key-destruction notary" service that notarizes the document, and
then destroys the certified one-time signature key as a matter of policy.

Regards,

Carlin

____________________________

-  Carlin Covey
   Cylink Corporation