bugtraq - Re: International Domain Name [IDN] support in modern browsers allows attackers to spoof domain name URLs + SSL certs.

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Message-ID: <001e01c5139f$2f48b8b0$0a01a8c0@anchorsign.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:44:46 -0800
From: "Thor (Hammer of God)" <thor@...merofgod.com>
To: "Vincent Archer" <var@...y-all.com>
Cc: <bugtraq@...urityfocus.com>,
	"Scott Gifford" <sgifford@...pectclass.com>,
	"David Schwartz" <davids@...master.com>
Subject: Re: International Domain Name [IDN] support in modern browsers allows attackers to spoof domain name URLs + SSL certs.

>> Nonsense. The CA is asking for your trust and can only earn revenue based
>> upon the number of people who trust it.
>
> Wrong. The CA gains trust because it manages to get its certificate 
> included
> with the default package for major browsers.
>
> It then has to persuade its customers (the server operators) to buy a
> certificate. It does not have to persuade any user: trust is already
> implied by the bundling.

Of course the CA has to gain the trust of the users... There are many uses 
for client-based certificates: code signing, user verification, email 
encryption, automatic mapping of user account to personal certificates, blah 
blah blah.  The business model of commercial CA's is most certainly not 
limited to server operators only.   While personal certificate stores come 
with pre-trusted root certificates from many CA's to automatically trust 
many server-based functions, there is a vast market for client certs.

T