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RE: End-Entity Certificate Policies



Just adding my voice to the chorus - I'd strongly object to limiting EE certs 
to a single policy OID.  One of the planned deployment models uses policy OIDs 
as applicability labels (OK for email; OK for transactions; Ok for intranet 
access; OK for online banking; etc.)  These policy OIDs may well be 
standardized across multiple issuers/organizations.  Thus, a given cert may 
well have multiple such OIDs present (loosely like having multiple card network 
logos on the back of your ATM/credit card) if approved for multiple purposes.  
This model also makes RP configuration much simpler.  

As to policy qualifiers, you can deprecate them everywhere as far as I'm 
concerned.

Dave

> -----Original Message-----
> From: housley [mailto:housley@spyrus.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 1999 4:57 PM
> To: ietf-pkix
> Cc: housley
> Subject: End-Entity Certificate Policies
> 
> 
> Tim Polk and I got together today to discuss the changes 
> needed to address 
> the policy mapping bug (as discussed at the Oslo meeting).  
> As part of this 
> discussion, we discussed the certificate policy extension.
> 
> We believe that a CA certificate may contain one or more 
> certificate policy 
> OID.  On the other hand, we believe that an end-entity certificate 
> containing a certificate policy extension must  contain a single 
> certificate policy OID.  RFC 2459 says:
> 
>     The certificate policies extension contains a sequence of 
> one or more
>     policy information terms, each of which consists of an object
>     identifier (OID) and optional qualifiers.  These policy 
> information
>     terms indicate the policy under which the certificate has 
> been issued
>     and the purposes for which the certificate may be used.  Optional
>     qualifiers, which may be present, are not expected to change the
>     definition of the policy.
> 
> We would like to add words to make it more clear that an end-entity 
> certificate may only contain a single certificate policy OID.  The 
> explanation of this extension's purpose in a CA certificate 
> was not spelled 
> out, so we propose to fix that too.  Our proposed text is:
> 
>     The certificate policies extension contains a sequence of 
> one or more
>     policy information terms, each of which consists of an object
>     identifier (OID) and optional qualifiers.  In an 
> end-entity certificate,
>     these policy information terms indicate the single policy 
> under which
>     the certificate has been issued and the purposes for 
> which the certificate
>     may be used.  In a CA certificate,  these policy information terms
>     limit the set of policies for certification paths which 
> include this
>     certificate.  Optional qualifiers, which may be present, are not
>     expected to change the definition of the policy.
> 
> Does anyone disagree?
> 
> Tim and I also discussed certificate policy qualifiers.  Tim 
> and I agree 
> that certificate policy qualifiers should only appear in end-entity 
> certificates.  That is, we agree that certificate policy 
> qualifier should 
> never appear in a CA certificate.  Does anyone (besides Mike 
> Baum) disagree?
> 
> Russ
> 

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