[cabfpub] EV Gudelines section 9.2.5 & X.520

Ben Wilson ben.wilson at digicert.com
Fri Jul 1 18:39:48 UTC 2016


To help this discussion along, here is a transcript of yesterday’s Policy Review Working Group meeting:

 

Li-Chun:  I would like to address the Subject Name issue and a new issue, which is the proprietary OID of Microsoft for jurisdiction of incorporation.  We feel we need to prepare a proposal to modify the EV Guidelines and allow CAs to modify their CPSs and internal programs to accommodate a non-proprietary OID.  And then on the first issue,  maybe we can find more examples, such as in Europe, of small countries with the subject name issue.  I don’t know why browsers reject the ballot.   I think that most of the CAs agree with the effort.  

 

Peter:  The EV OIDs for jurisdiction were created by Microsoft.  Microsoft allocated those OIDs out of their namespace  to the  EV program, correct?  

 

Li-Chun:  But in the EV Guidelines we said we are referencing with X.520.  They are just excluding the  BRs, such as country OID, state or province OID, and locality OID.  The BRs are accurate.  Our position is that those OIDs are not just  for physical address.  It’s also about jurisdiction, and X.520 is for the way we support the Distinguished Name.  We cannot sort different entities with the same Distinguished Name.  If you sync the register with the protocol and for the hierarchical structure.  Also, for example in RFC 3739 there are Qualified Certificates Profiles.  So there will be the serial number for individuals or for natural person and they can use it with an IV certificate, and also we use the serial number in the Subject Distinguished Name for our citizen certificate in Taiwan.  We just need to offer to better, one is for relief the registration for subject’s state or province and the locality for small countries, as we discussed previously.  

Another is the proprietary Microsoft OID.   The BRs state that for the state, province and locality OID.  And we will offer this in the mailing list in the future  in two weeks.  

 

Peter:  You’ve  raised several  good topics.  First, regarding what you’ve raised as the proprietary Microsoft OIDs, as I understand it, the definition of  a Subject Distinguished Name is a sequence of attributes  of  any type.  X.520 lists some attribute types, but it is  not an exclusive set.   Any organization can allocate new attribute types.  As part of the  development of the  EV specification, several new attribute types were defined.  This is similar to what countries do when they develop new attribute types for their certificates, which we’ve seen with things like electronic IDs in Europe, etc.  I am not familiar with the Taiwanese electronic ID standard, but it may use OIDs from its arc as well.  The question in the  EV Guidelines that I think is confusing, which I’d like to  see if we could clarify, are those OIDs from Microsoft where the content definition in them, that is the ASN.1 structure was defined as a reference to the data type that includes the phrase X.520, which is from RFC 5280.  It is not a reference to  X.520 itself.  Instead RFC 5280 uses the term X.520 itself.  So I can see how it is confusing.   Erwan posted a revision to the mailing list a version that did not use that  term.  Did Erwan’s email  make more sense?  Should we propose a ballot that  uses that  terminology instead?

 

Li-Chun:  We have seen that email, but  we think it is a proprietary OID.  We suggest that we use the OIDs in the Baseline Requirements and in X.520, country, state and locality.  

 

Peter:  I believe that all of the browsers have coded those other OIDs at this point.  So it would not be an EV certificate and the  browsers would not accept it as such without those OIDs that are underneath the  Microsoft OID arc.

 

Li-Chun:  We think the  browsers only put those OIDs printable chain in to appear when we click  on the  EV certificate’s detailed information.  So, those efforts will  be in CAs’ program to  change proprietary OID  to an X.520 OID.  I think they will not involve browsers.  I think we can discuss this topic further on the mailing list.

 

Peter:  Just to make sure I understand what you’re saying, your objection is to the inclusion of OIDs that are not covered in the X.520 document in the CA/B Forum standards?

 

Li-Chun:  Yes, and I will discuss this  with my colleagues,  and I think in the EV Guidelines we say they are from X.520, so we don’t want an X.520 and RFC 5280 … There are Microsoft registered proprietary OIDs.  So I think  several years ago they discussed this about the EV Guidelines and they follow the TOC for Microsoft’s suggestions for OIDs and nobody cared about this,  and now we find in an international environment we suggest that  we not use a proprietary OID.  

 

Peter: OK.  Now I believe on the other topic of Distinguished Names, Subject Contents, you sent the diagram from the X.500 series several times … I believe it is from X.521?   Your concern is that, as defined by the X.500 series, distinguished names should be part of a hierarchical tree.  So the challenge is that the CA/B Forum guidelines do not follow that because it is not possible to make a reasonable hierarchical tree with the distinguished names that are specified in the  guidelines.  For example, the  EV Guidelines require two entries that both require country names,  which therefore does not follow X.520. Is that correct?  

 

Li-Chun:  We want to  start discussing this problem in more countries like Taiwan or Singapore and so we don’t have the  state or province and we have a centralized database of government to let different companies will not have the  same company’s name.  We have an English version.  I have  referenced our Taiwan Companies Act, and there are those rules, and the Distinguished Name for the company certificate, we use either the state or province.  So we suggest that  we release the restrictions that  we have to put the  state or province for small countries.  Like Ben’s suggestion, we can list those country codes that don’t require the state or province.  For those companies, their distinguished name can just be, for example, C=TW, O=Chunghwa Telecom, and we need not put in L=Taipei City. 

 

Peter:  Li-Chun, are you using a standard in Taiwan, or is there something that  your CA complies with, where  you use the Distinguished Name that is present in your certificates in another context?  

 

Li-Chun:  We have a commercial CA and a government CA, and for those CAs with the Distinguished Name  we can distinguish in the whole country the jurisdiction.  We don’t need to put in a locality because of the X.520 hierarchy structure.  And we can distinguish the  company and we can guarantee that  they will  not have  the  same name.  So we will not put in the  locality.  I reference that in the email.

 

Peter:  So, what if all of the web browsers said, “we don’t care about X.520 and the hierarchy.  That is, we’re using X.509-formatted certificates, but the intent is not to  follow the  strict, direct hierarchy that is called out in some of the  other standards”?  Does that  conflict with other things that  you are required to  follow?

 

Li-Chun:  If for some reason you say you didn’t want to  follow X.520, but in the EV Guidelines you say you follow X.520, I see in RFC 5280, and Baseline Requirements, and the EV Guidelines all say we follow the  X.520 standard.   I don’t know why other CA/Browser Forum members would not want to follow.  Where we identify the subject’s identity,  we first have to check with the  government so that  we will  know it.  You  have to  consider the small country’s situation.  In America you  have  so many states, and you  can use those to  distinguish the English name, but in our  country, we rely on the  X.520 data.  I think  it is fundamental for each CA to distinguish their own subscribers’ identities.    We have to keep them distinguished if they have a different public key, a different subject distinguished name, and a different serial number.  We have to vet them to  prevent a collision problem.      

 

 

 

From: public-bounces at cabforum.org [mailto:public-bounces at cabforum.org] On Behalf Of Erwann Abalea
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2016 10:02 AM
To: 陳立群 <realsky at cht.com.tw>
Cc: CABFPub <public at cabforum.org>
Subject: Re: [cabfpub] EV Gudelines section 9.2.5 & X.520

 

Bonjour, 

 

I haven’t seen an authoritative definition of these 3 attributes, but always considered them the way Peter described them.

 

Maybe Microsoft should propose a clear definition, using the syntax from RFC5912, something like this:

 

id-MS-jurisdictionLocalityName OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { 1 3 6 1 4 1 311 60 2 1 1 }

id-MS-jurisdictionStateOrProvinceName OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { 1 3 6 1 4 1 311 60 2 1 2 }

id-MS-jurisdictionCountryName OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { 1 3 6 1 4 1 311 60 2 1 3 }

 

at-jurisdictionCountryName ATTRIBUTE ::= {

  TYPE PrintableString (SIZE (2))

  IDENTIFIED BY id-MS-jurisdictionCountryName

}

 

at-jurisdictionStateOrProvinceName ATTRIBUTE ::= {

  TYPE DirectoryString {ub-state-name}

  IDENTIFIED BY id-MS-jurisdictionStateOrProvinceName

}

 

at-jurisdictionLocalityName ATTRIBUTE ::= {

  TYPE DirectoryString {ub-locality-name}

  IDENTIFIED BY id-MS-jurisdictionLocalityName

}

 

DirectoryString is also redefined in RFC5912 to have a size constraint.

 

Cordialement,

Erwann Abalea

 

Le 29 juin 2016 à 17:08, 陳立群 <realsky at cht.com.tw <mailto:realsky at cht.com.tw> > a écrit :

 

 

    In X.520 as attached file or RFC 5280(https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5280) , There are no jurisdictionLocalityName (OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.1), 

jurisdictionStateOrProvinceName (OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.2), jurisdictionCountryName (OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.3).  You can use search function to search attached PDF file.  

 

These three OIDs are registered by Microsoft. Please see http://www.alvestrand.no/objectid/1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.1.html, http://www.alvestrand.no/objectid/1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.2.html and http://www.alvestrand.no/objectid/1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.3.html 

 

   Peter referenced EV GL 9.2.5 such as 

Naming attributes of type X520LocalityName

 

id-at-localityName      AttributeType ::= { id-at 7 }

 

     that id is 2.5.4.  

 

    But Country Name (2.5.4.6), State or Province Name (2.5.4.8) and  Locality Name (2.5.4.7) are appeared in X.520. 

    

Li-Chun CHEN

    


 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: public-bounces at cabforum.org <mailto:public-bounces at cabforum.org>  [mailto:public-bounces at cabforum.org] On Behalf Of Peter Bowen
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2016 4:52 AM
To: CABFPub
Subject: [cabfpub] EV Gudelines section 9.2.5 & X.520

 

On today’s validation working group call, there was a question about how X.520 related to the attributes defined in section 9.2.5 of the EV Guidelines.

 

This section says:

 

"Locality (if required):

subject:jurisdictionLocalityName (OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.1) 

ASN.1 - X520LocalityName as specified in RFC 5280

 

State or province (if required):

subject:jurisdictionStateOrProvinceName (OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.2)

ASN.1 - X520StateOrProvinceName as specified in RFC 5280 

 

Country:

subject:jurisdictionCountryName (OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.3) 

ASN.1 – X520countryName as specified in RFC 5280"

 

The ASN.1 definitions all reference RFC 5280 and are defined in Appendix A.  They are copied at the end of this email.  RFC 5280 also says " The DirectoryString type is defined as a choice of PrintableString, TeletexString, BMPString, UTF8String, and UniversalString.  CAs conforming to this profile MUST use either the PrintableString or UTF8String encoding of DirectoryString”

 

Taken together, this means:

 

jurisdictionCountryName (OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.3) must be a PrintableString with two characters which together are a “alpha 2” code defined in ISO 3166 Part 1.

jurisdictionStateOrProvinceName (OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.2), if included, should be either a PrintableString or UTF8String and must contain at least 1 and not more than 128 characters.

jurisdictionLocalityName (OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.1), if included, shoud be either a PrintableString or UTF8String and must contain at least 1 and not more than 128 characters.

 

The appropriate values for these attributes, and when one needs to include the the latter two, is defined in section 9.2.5 as well.

 

Does this help clarify how these attributes work?

 

Thanks,

Peter

 

 

 

 

-- Naming attributes of type X520LocalityName

 

id-at-localityName      AttributeType ::= { id-at 7 }

 

-- Naming attributes of type X520LocalityName:

--   X520LocalityName ::= DirectoryName (SIZE (1..ub-locality-name))

--

-- Expanded to avoid parameterized type:

X520LocalityName ::= CHOICE {

      teletexString     TeletexString   (SIZE (1..ub-locality-name)),

      printableString   PrintableString (SIZE (1..ub-locality-name)),

      universalString   UniversalString (SIZE (1..ub-locality-name)),

      utf8String        UTF8String      (SIZE (1..ub-locality-name)),

      bmpString         BMPString       (SIZE (1..ub-locality-name)) }

 

-- Naming attributes of type X520StateOrProvinceName

 

id-at-stateOrProvinceName AttributeType ::= { id-at 8 }

 

-- Naming attributes of type X520StateOrProvinceName:

--   X520StateOrProvinceName ::= DirectoryName (SIZE (1..ub-state-name))

--

-- Expanded to avoid parameterized type:

X520StateOrProvinceName ::= CHOICE {

      teletexString     TeletexString   (SIZE (1..ub-state-name)),

      printableString   PrintableString (SIZE (1..ub-state-name)),

      universalString   UniversalString (SIZE (1..ub-state-name)),

      utf8String        UTF8String      (SIZE (1..ub-state-name)),

      bmpString         BMPString       (SIZE (1..ub-state-name)) }

 

-- Naming attributes of type X520countryName (digraph from IS 3166)

 

id-at-countryName       AttributeType ::= { id-at 6 }

 

X520countryName ::=     PrintableString (SIZE (2))

 

-- Upper Bounds

 

ub-locality-name INTEGER ::= 128

ub-state-name INTEGER ::= 128

 

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