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Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?

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Re: Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?

#41

Post by akerl_ »

lrvick wrote: post #39
tptacek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No part of what's being proposed here has anything to do with PGP. They aren't proposing a "web of trust" with "key servers". They're proposing an immutable binding between names and key identities. PGP's "self-sovereignty" comes from mutually agreeing with groups of people who already know each other to exchange files establishing identities. That is to trusted identity what the one time pad is to cryptography: a pu…

> PGP's "self-sovereignty" comes from mutually agreeing with groups of people who already know each other to exchange files establishing identities. Or between total strangers that met in person at a key signing party and agreed "you look like a human and not a bot to me". We need human identity to be certified by humans using very long lived standard PKI primitives. Anything else, bots can easily monopolize to the p…

If the measure here is "I met this person at an event and they were a human", and the protocol becomes actually important for proving personhood, what is the measure that stops somebody from turning up to a bunch of events and getting "human" keys signed to then repurpose for bots?

Re: Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?

#42

Post by lrvick »

akerl_ wrote: post #41
lrvick wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PGP's "self-sovereignty" comes from mutually agreeing with groups of people who already know each other to exchange files establishing identities. Or between total strangers that met in person at a key signing party and agreed "you look like a human and not a bot to me". We need human identity to be certified by humans using very long lived standard PKI primitives. Anything else, bots can easily monopolize to the p…

If the measure here is "I met this person at an event and they were a human", and the protocol becomes actually important for proving personhood, what is the measure that stops somebody from turning up to a bunch of events and getting "human" keys signed to then repurpose for bots?

Because this is too expensive to scale, and people talk in small circles about who has signed who. Good luck inventing thousands of fake identities with a long trust history and reputation with this approach.

Botmasters like situations where they can hide offline and buy bots blue checkmarks with stolen credit cards.

Re: Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?

#43

Post by lrvick »

tptacek wrote: post #40
lrvick wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PGP's "self-sovereignty" comes from mutually agreeing with groups of people who already know each other to exchange files establishing identities. Or between total strangers that met in person at a key signing party and agreed "you look like a human and not a bot to me". We need human identity to be certified by humans using very long lived standard PKI primitives. Anything else, bots can easily monopolize to the p…

That's fine! It's perfectly reasonable to say "this isn't a problem worth solving". But you can't then say something else actually solves the problem by punting on it. Be clearer about what you're saying, instead of invoking the specter of "security influencers".

I am not saying it is not a problem worth solving. I am actually saying PGP actually solves the problem of which key actually belongs to which person.

There are dozens of keys claiming to be Torvalds that lack credible endorsements from high reputation identities, so those are easily ignored. The one that has been signing the Linux kernel for years and signed by many people putting their reputations on the line is the one we care about.

It is intuitive and does not need a math degree to understand.

Re: Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?

#44

Post by akerl_ »

lrvick wrote: post #42
akerl_ wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the measure here is "I met this person at an event and they were a human", and the protocol becomes actually important for proving personhood, what is the measure that stops somebody from turning up to a bunch of events and getting "human" keys signed to then repurpose for bots?

Because this is too expensive to scale, and people talk in small circles about who has signed who. Good luck inventing thousands of fake identities with a long trust history and reputation with this approach. Botmasters like situations where they can hide offline and buy bots blue checkmarks with stolen credit cards.

This is a fun kind of paradox. Right now it wouldn't scale well because signing parties are a niche nerd activity and having your identities signed by other GPG users doesn't really help with anything you'd want to do with a bot.

But if you were to actually succeed in making key signing parties a more common thing that people used to test for human-ness, and that test was tied to meaningful things online, it would both become easier to fake and more valuable to fake.

Re: Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?

#45

Post by akerl_ »

lrvick wrote: post #43
tptacek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine! It's perfectly reasonable to say "this isn't a problem worth solving". But you can't then say something else actually solves the problem by punting on it. Be clearer about what you're saying, instead of invoking the specter of "security influencers".

I am not saying it is not a problem worth solving. I am actually saying PGP actually solves the problem of which key actually belongs to which person. There are dozens of keys claiming to be Torvalds that lack credible endorsements from high reputation identities, so those are easily ignored. The one that has been signing the Linux kernel for years and signed by many people putting their reputations on the line is th…

Why do I trust the people who are putting their reputations on the line? If they either screwed up or are malicious, I guess I'm just out of luck?

Re: Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?

#46

Post by tptacek »

lrvick wrote: post #43
tptacek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine! It's perfectly reasonable to say "this isn't a problem worth solving". But you can't then say something else actually solves the problem by punting on it. Be clearer about what you're saying, instead of invoking the specter of "security influencers".

I am not saying it is not a problem worth solving. I am actually saying PGP actually solves the problem of which key actually belongs to which person. There are dozens of keys claiming to be Torvalds that lack credible endorsements from high reputation identities, so those are easily ignored. The one that has been signing the Linux kernel for years and signed by many people putting their reputations on the line is th…

Like I said: this is to cryptographic identity what the one-time pad is to message encryption. Simple and unuseful.

Re: Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?

#47

Post by tptacek »

lrvick wrote: post #36
purplehat_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first bit seems possibly solvable with private set intersection. You can publish a salted hash of everybody you trust, and I can compute hashes of everyone I trust with your salt to see if we have anyone in common. Then I check the signature corresponding to the salted hash I like, and hopefully it doesn't reveal anything you don't want to reveal. I don't know if anyone has actually done this in practice. Does it…

Having a public graph is critical for trust in Linux distributions. All it means is a human met you and agreed you are human and signed your key. It does not imply you are friends. It is pretty useful for someone totally outside the trust graph to be able to prove the key that just signed the latest release of stagex is only a couple steps away from the keys that sign debian and the Linux kernel. Keys that long preda…

People are not Linux distributions.

Re: Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?

#48

Post by lrvick »

tptacek wrote: post #46
lrvick wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not saying it is not a problem worth solving. I am actually saying PGP actually solves the problem of which key actually belongs to which person. There are dozens of keys claiming to be Torvalds that lack credible endorsements from high reputation identities, so those are easily ignored. The one that has been signing the Linux kernel for years and signed by many people putting their reputations on the line is th…

Like I said: this is to cryptographic identity what the one-time pad is to message encryption. Simple and unuseful.

It is unuseful to people with threat models that allow for entrusting their social graph to centralized identity systems managed by centrally controlled software supply chains that any compromised insider could manipulate.

For me and thousands of other Linux distro maintainers that maintain the core software supply chains and infrastructure that runs the internet, we cannot afford centralized trust graphs. Nothing else comes close to solving the problems PGP solves.

That is why it is an active IETF standard with modern cryptography and several actively maintained and widely used implementations.

Re: Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?

#49

Post by lrvick »

akerl_ wrote: post #45
lrvick wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not saying it is not a problem worth solving. I am actually saying PGP actually solves the problem of which key actually belongs to which person. There are dozens of keys claiming to be Torvalds that lack credible endorsements from high reputation identities, so those are easily ignored. The one that has been signing the Linux kernel for years and signed by many people putting their reputations on the line is th…

Why do I trust the people who are putting their reputations on the line? If they either screwed up or are malicious, I guess I'm just out of luck?

If you can manipulate dozens of Linux maintainers to sign a key maliciously, we have bigger problems. Like a complete failure of the internet.

Decentralized human trust, or centralized corporate trust. Pick one.

Re: Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?

#50

Post by lrvick »

akerl_ wrote: post #44
lrvick wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this is too expensive to scale, and people talk in small circles about who has signed who. Good luck inventing thousands of fake identities with a long trust history and reputation with this approach. Botmasters like situations where they can hide offline and buy bots blue checkmarks with stolen credit cards.

This is a fun kind of paradox. Right now it wouldn't scale well because signing parties are a niche nerd activity and having your identities signed by other GPG users doesn't really help with anything you'd want to do with a bot. But if you were to actually succeed in making key signing parties a more common thing that people used to test for human-ness, and that test was tied to meaningful things online, it would bo…

When you sign a key you pick a trust level. If no one reputable has ever trusted a persons key with a higher level than "human", then that key should be subject to significantly higher scrutiny.

If you look at my key, you will find it is heavily connected to the keys that sign most linux distributions, bitcoin, and commits to the Linux kernel today.

If those 5444 linked identities that long pre-date AI are colluded to create a fake me and fake people that signed people who signed me over the last 25 years, and got those fake fingerprints in the keychains of every distro and got matching fingerprints on thousands of privately owned sites, we indeed have serious problems.

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