NESSETT@CCC.NMFECC.GOV (12/15/89)
> The certificate approach of X.500 is not a solution to many security > problems. In fact it only provides a very crude key distribution > mechanism. The security work in SC21 is looking for a uch more generic > solution, in which security information is encoded in a general > format. One part of that format might be an X.500 certificate, another > format might look like a Kerberos ticket. X.500 doesn't address who > generates the information, who consumes the information, how the > information is protected in different ways, etc, etc. > At the recent Florence meeting a people from the security and > directory groups got together to convince the directory people that > there is a larger security problem and to address the issue of > securing the directory iteslf. I think we are having a violent agreement. I was careful to say that X.500 is the *foundation* upon which problems in distributed system security can be solved. Separating encryptions services, authentication services and access control services is the correct approach, which I assume is the direction that ISO is taking. One of the problems with kerberos is that it bundles encryption service with authentication service, thereby limiting its applicability. Furthermore, there is a practical bias in kerberos toward access list based access control, an approach that has significant problems in a distributed system. As an aside, I would be interested in learning about the work SC21 is doing in this area. Is there anything available from anonymous FTP? Dan