full-disclosure - [OFFTOPIC] PGP vs. certificate from Verisign

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From: listuser at seifried.org (Kurt Seifried)
Subject: [OFFTOPIC] PGP vs. certificate from Verisign

This is not on topic, hence the [OFF TOPIC].

At no point should the CA EVER have your private key(*). If this were the
case then why are we using public/private key crypto.You send YOUR PUBLIC
key to the CERTIFICATE AUTHORITY who signs it with THEIR PRIVATE key and
sends it back to you. Of course it is possible they have messed around with
the software so that your private key is sent, but I find this unlikely
unless there is some security hole in your local software (hint: MS crypto
provider would let you know something is trying to access your key). If you
don't trust them setup a private/public key, export the public key and send
that to the CA.

This whole discussion is INCREDIBLY OFF TOPIC for full-disclosure, unless
someone has news/proof that a certificate authority is gathering private
keys or something similar.

* I'm sure there are some extremely odd corner cases but I can't think of
them first thing in the morning.

Kurt Seifried, kurt@...fried.org
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http://seifried.org/security/