[openpgp] Re: Certificate discovery over HKP

Bart Butler <[email protected]> Wed, 09 Apr 2025 11:35:43 +0000

Newsgroups	gmane.ietf.openpgp
Message-ID	<xkUv7_eibLgJYnt2q9RghjHQfOiDbC_eX2zSMGLOLSLdm2pt9qAdU8YEd27Mrphz6vmlFgatTbtjKYey3INxk8HE7oeiN0OWxVaiR8hixcc=@pm.me>

Hi Andrew,

> And I do appreciate that the same argument applies to DANE etc. over DNS-non-SEC. But it's a regression when compared to WKD over TLS.

We could give clients the discretion to only consider DNSSEC-secured WKD paths if they want, or to indicate this differently in their key discovery UI. Or even require it--at this point, the vast majority of TLDs are DNSSEC-enabled and deploying it for domain owners is as easy as using CloudFlare as their DNS provider and hitting a switch. The world is in a very different position for DNSSEC deployment today than it was even 3 or 4 years ago.

https://stats.dnssec-tools.org/#/?top=dane&trend_tab=0

If we did require DNSSEC (and client verification of it) this makes the client's work slightly harder, and life harder for certain TLDs/deployers. On the other hand, my bet is that it makes it much easier for many, many other domains to deploy domain-based key discovery. I'd take that tradeoff: there are many fewer client implementers than domains that would benefit from this, so that shift in complexity is a good thing.

-Bart

On Wednesday, April 9th, 2025 at 11:56 AM, Andrew Gallagher <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 9 Apr 2025, at 10:40, Daniel Huigens <[email protected]> wrote:
> 

> > 

> > So the only difference here is that the attack is silent also for the
> > sender, in the sense that they will still see that the message will be
> > encrypted, if they trust the keyserver. Perhaps that's still significant
> > in the sense that they might be more willing to send sensitive data in
> > an encrypted email (but then again, you could argue that in that case
> > they should verify the key first).
> 

> 

> Agreed, but we’ve spent enough time telling people to look for lock icons that a significant number of them will behave differently when the lock icon appears - in which case we’re giving them a false sense of security. Sure, they *should* verify out of band, but how many will in practice?
> 

> And I do appreciate that the same argument applies to DANE etc. over DNS-non-SEC. But it's a regression when compared to WKD over TLS.
> 

> A
>

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