John Gardiner Myers wrote:
Trustworthiness is not a single metric. You cannot point to an entity
and say "they have a trustworthiness of 5 units."
Trust is the granting
of the ability to break one's security and is always in the context of a
security model. One does not trust an entity outright, one trusts an
entity to do or not do certain things.
Trust is not the same of trustworthiness. You cited the classic definition
of trust, and I agree with it. I also agree with your statement about the
ways in whick one trusts an entity.
I believe it IS possible to objectively measure a candidate's ability
and willingness to perform in a way that is worthy of trust. I believe
it is possible to come up with a list of criteria, against which the
candidate can be measured and "scored" via some metrics. It is possible
to produce, for such set of criteria, a minimum acceptable score. For
some criteria, it may be 100%, all or nothing. For others, it may be
measured in some linear or logarithmic scale, such as the number of bits
in a key, and a minimum threshold of acceptance may be applied.
I believe it behooves mozilla to be as objective about this process of
CA candidate selection as possible. Two or more people ought to be
able to take the publicly stated set of criteria and metric functions,
and the set input upon which MF relies, and do the scoring themselves
and come to the same conclusion as to whether the CA candidate meets
the test or does not.
Perhaps there will remain a FEW subjective areas, but they should not
be overriding factors in the decision, IMO. It ought not be the case
that only a specific individual like Frank (or you, or me) can decide.
The criteria and metrics should be objective enough that many people
can come to the same conclusions.
So we must first determine what the relevant security model is, then
consider those factors that affect a listed CA's ability to break the
security model.
I like that approach, and will send a separate message to follow up
on that whole line of reasoning. I will call it "on a crypto security
model for mozilla".
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