And guess what: this already exists. DO-178C for aviation, ISO 26262 for automotive, IEC 62304 for medical, etc. But these standards are specialized to the industry because, no surprise, there is no appropriate one-size-fits-all software development approach. You can’t just say “software must be bug-free” and leave it at that. That’s been shown to be impossible. Even formally verified software can have spec bugs.
There’s already formal standards that CAs must meet, and they get audited too. Maybe those standards aren’t rigorous enough. But even with those standards, what authority is going to punish a CA who breaks them, other than browser/OS vendors? If it damages the host nation, you might see something. But if the host nation is complicit, and used the rogue CA for intel purposes—or if the company has political connections—then I don’t think you’re getting the punishment you want.
It makes sense to have these heavy standards when you’re talking about software whose failure could immediately cost actual lives. I’m hesitant to expand it elsewhere as it could threaten the viability of open source and software freedom in general. Nobody should ever need a license to run a compiler or deploy an application to their own server.
Also, a purely software-focused standard doesn’t make sense for CAs, as they also operate and maintain infrastructure. The failure with this CA was a process failure.
I probably emphasized software too much in my reply, but that’s usually where I see people call for standards to be forced on the “tech” industry.
My opinion is that all the process in the world won't help if the people doing it don't care about the outcomes.
Right now, it would appear that the strongest external consequences for fucking up a CA are strongly-worded posts in a web forum. I would hesitate to call the wind-down of a business unit a "consequence" in this context because it's the default outcome. Everyone was already playing that game. We need an additional layer of pressure to encourage good behavior.
It would seem that we have different definitions of "wind-down". Everyone in the business operated with this consequence already on the table and it did not seem to provide the desired outcome.
Like it or not, CA infrastructure is global, and there’s no single set of laws that can or should govern it.
No, the strongest consequence is their stock value. It has gone down a lot and if they continue not following their agreed obligations as shown I hope that trend will continue.
[0] https://www.felonybench.com/
[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...
I think we need to put Sam Altman in jail.
And I think it'll be an instructive experience for the industry and for the world.
- Edward SnowdenSure browsers are safe, but countless other internet softwares aren't (curl, python, pip just to name a few I know off the top of my head). Pip has a big problem because even if the OS distrusts the eMudhra certs, it still does because it has its own trust store. This will be an attack vector (that now everyone knows about) for a while.