Re: [lamps] On the need for standardization of software-based interoperable private keys [was: Re: draft-ietf-lamps-samples: PKCS12 expertise needed (including objects for comparison)]

Inline…

apologies for being late to this party....

Note:  everything here is about encryption keys:  

Hold on a minute.  All fine and good to say that 'a message be encrypted for each of your end points', but how does the RP get the public key for all of those end points?  

[CW] Therein lies the work to do.

not like we have a directory or anything. Do you want a signed message from each end point?  Who is going to do that? 

[CW] No, I don’t want a signed message from each end point nor is a signed message necessary, only the certs.

It won't work.  

[CW] This seems premature given “it” is not defined, but if the problem isn’t of interest as a pursuit right now that’s fine.

If the big directory in the sky had panned out, then one could push all the public keys you wanted to your directory entry.  A RP could encrypt to you including all of your encryption keys.  Is there another way?

[CW] I can have a mail server send an out of office note. Why can’t I have a mail server send a set of keys? Maybe for some well-known + appendage, as an example. I don’t know, as I am not saying I have a fleshed out an answer. 

Interoperability of private keys does matter.  

[CW] I did not say interoperability of private keys does not matter and I certainly have no beef with improving or replacing PKCS12. I only questioned why we were focusing exclusively on slinging around private keys and not on a way to avoid the need to do so especially with good hardware crypto modules available to most folks now. 

Key escrow of those private (encryption) keys does matter - so that they can be imported into whatever MUA you need.  (where you store the keys on that device is a whole other conversation).

[CW] I am not sure if escrow of all encryption keys matters or if it only matters that messages are encrypted for a key that is escrowed. Maybe the escrowed key isn’t on any end point that I use but simply corresponds to another key in the set of keys that should be used when encrypting for me.

PKCS#8 will do, as long as the MUA/device/whatever can match up the certificate w/ the key (sometimes not entirely trivial).

As far as signature keys/certs go - feel free to get a new key for every device, no problem... 

[CW] Of course, so can we get there for encryption too? Ultimately, I’d like to copy/export private keys around less and use end-to-end encryption more and this thread was in the general neighborhood of those two aims, hence my comment.

Deb Cooley

decoole@nsa.gov

On Thu, Aug 5, 2021 at 12:32 PM Carl Wallace <carl@redhoundsoftware.com> wrote:

<snip>

    I don't know how I'd use the TEE in my phone with my laptop/desktop for email.
    I imagine that one could run PKCS11 across the USB cable, but I'm unaware of
    any actual software to do that.  That sure would be a nice thing to do.
[CW] I was not suggesting that but instead that a message be encrypted for each of your end points. I'm not sure why we are clinging to one encryption key per person. Amongst the keys messages for you are encrypted could be the key that you printed out, for example. I am not suggesting we’d not benefit from improved private key formats, but am suggesting we may be able to do better than slinging private keys around in some cases.

_______________________________________________
Spasm mailing list
Spasm@ietf.org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/spasm