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non-repudiation vs. revocation



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At 09:01 AM 11/3/97 -0500, David P. Kemp wrote:
>The "invalidity date" in an X.509 CRL entry is an advisory indication
>of, for example, the point at which a user believes his key was
>compromised.  But allowing both 1) invalidity dates arbitrarily
>far in the past, and 2) invalidity dates unconditionally revoking the
>binding, would result in certification semantics useless for commerce.
>
>Generally speaking, (B) is correct.  Revoking a certificate cannot be
>used to repudiate a non-repudiable transaction.  But an invalidity date
>in a CRL entry can be useful as a warning flag when processing
>requested but not-yet-committed transactions.

It is not clear at all to me that non-repudiation is possible, given the 
state of consumer OS and H/W development (and the Radar O'Reilly attack).  
If we give up non-repudiation as a nice academic concept but unworkable in 
the real world, then I see nothing wrong with allowing invalidity statements 
to tell the truth as you know it -- no matter how far back the revocation 
goes.

 - Carl

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|Carl M. Ellison  cme@cybercash.com   http://www.clark.net/pub/cme |
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