Re: [saag] post-X509 cryptographic identities

[Tony Rutkowski <[e-mail]>]

Antitrust and tort liability are significant components here as well, 
and the support by sovereigns provides immunity.  Why antitrust 
enforcement or litigation hasn't occurred already, seems almost improbable.

The billions of OID tagged objects with certificates originally 
envisioned by Jim White and others at PARC, was predicated on immunity 
provided by sovereigns.  Indeed, the US portion of the namespace was 
covered by a DOC proceeding in 1992.  Two years later, the newly 
free-floating IANA would adopt a no trust approach to generate money for 
the growing DARPA DNS domain name business.  See 
http://www.circleid.com/posts/20180113_the_meeting_that_changed_the_darpa_datagram_internet/

--tony

On 2020-02-13 12:56 PM, Nico Williams wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 12:34:12PM -0500, Tony Rutkowski wrote:
>> We have had hierarchical trusted name systems for a while.  PSTN numbers
>> still serve that function - which drove ENUM.
>>
>> The old idealized legacy DNS model arguably disappeared with vigorous
>> competition among alternative root servers, e.g, 1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8, etc.
> The registries and registrars haven't changed.  The quad-Ns have not yet
> balkanized the namespace.  They could, and they might, but it'd be
> awfully controversial, and it's not likely to happen.
>
> Moreover, DNSSEC still prevents namespace balkanization, and the quad-Ns
> aren't yet replacing the root keys with their own.  Nation states _can_
> pull this off because they can force people within their jurisdictions
> to use balkanized DNS.  And quad-N providers might even provide that
> service to nation states, but we're not there yet, and that's not
> evidence that a global namespace is bad.
>
>> Then there is also the shift to E2E MEF Ethernet...or with DONA's Handle
>> System.
>>
>> All of this arguably underscores the continuing need for a trusted PKI
>> cert.  As you note, sovereign registries have value.
> The registries need not be sovereign, but the dispute resolution
> mechanisms they tie into must be.
>
> Users need ways to establish trust.  Person-to-person (or device-to-
> device) trust establishment is amenable to TOFU, but customer-to-
> provider trust is not really.  The latter requires a namespace that
> users can navigate to find -ultimately- where to bring civil suit if
> need be.
>
> Nico