simple scenario ... Authenticating Hosts Via Self-Signed Certificates (New CMU Tool)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Scott Moskowitz <scott () bluespike com>
Date: August 15, 2008 9:21:32 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>, Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Subject: simple scenario ...  [IP] Authenticating Hosts Via Self- 
Signed Certificates (New CMU Tool)

Lauren:

Thank you for pointing this out.

A simple scenario - what would be the consequence of using a self- 
signed certificate to pay your ISP it's monthly bill ... No need for  
third party verification, per se (so long as your bank does not stop  
payment, I suppose), but *defining* a "network" using self-signed  
payment certificates vis-a-vis how the ISP is interpreting your use of  
*the* "network" would seem to give further granularity to what we pay  
for when we consume bandwidth & the related issue - how is bandwidth  
best measured?

I'll assume the scalability here is similar to other distributed trust  
models such as PGP ... Is that a fair assumption?

We created basic bandwidth certificates to work with bandwidth  
securitization instruments (X.509 with bandwidth reservation/diffQoS)  
as a mechanism to purchase "network" bandwidth - under the assumption  
that some bits are more valuable to the user or provider than others.  
The related issues is matching infrastructure cost to the packet flow.  
At one time the processing was too costly - 1996 - but this is a great  
example of how users can balance their network access & use with the  
ISP's interpretation of what constitutes the user's network access &  
use.

Sincerely,
Scott Moskowitz
http://www.bluespike.com/

On Aug 15, 2008, at 3:22 AM, David Farber wrote:

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
> Date: August 15, 2008 2:50:33 AM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: lauren () vortex com
> Subject: Authenticating Hosts Via Self-Signed Certificates (New CMU  
> Tool)
>
>
>       Authenticating Hosts Via Self-Signed Certificates (New CMU Tool)
>
>                  http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000414.html
>
>
> Greetings.  I have strongly argued for the expanded use of
> self-signed security certificates, and against the multiple alarming
> hoops that Firefox 3 now puts in the way of their use
> ( http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000402.html ).  I consider
> self-signed certificates to be an extremely valuable mechanism
> toward the deployment of pervasive Internet encryption, despite
> their native inability to provide host authentication in the manner
> of (usually commercial) certificates signed by traditional external
> authentication entities.
>
> So I'm especially pleased to learn of a new tool -- "Perspectives" --
> from CMU, that may offer a means to provide a very useful level of
> host authentication while still permitting the use of free
> self-signed certificates ( http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~perspectives ).
>
> If you're interested in security and the wider adoption of
> encryption as a default state on the Net, you might wish to explore
> this development.  I'd be interested in hearing your opinions
> regarding the techniques described, both pro and con.  Thanks.
>
> --Lauren--
> Lauren Weinstein
> lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org
> Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
> http://www.pfir.org/lauren
> Co-Founder, PFIR
>  - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
> Co-Founder, NNSquad
>  - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
> Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
> Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
> Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
>
>
>
>
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