[143980] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Property RIghts in Keys
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Lloyd)
Thu Feb 12 14:44:11 2009
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:40:08 -0500
From: Jack Lloyd <lloyd@randombit.net>
To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
Mail-Followup-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
In-Reply-To: <1484.70.116.23.89.1234460977.squirrel@www.acw.com>
On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 10:49:37AM -0700, sbg@acw.com wrote:
> If anybody can alter, revoke or reissue a certificate then I agree it is
> common property to which attaches no meaningful notion of property rights.
>
> If on the other hand only certain people can alter, revoke or reissue a
> certificate then it seems to me they have some sort of property rights in
> the certificate and from their point of view the certificate is their
> property and not everybody's property.
That only certain persons can revoke or reissue a certificate is a
matter of mathematics, not legal restrictions.
Say I have discovered a marvelous method of easily factoring RSA keys,
which unfortunately the margin of this emacs buffer is too small to
contain, and I then go out, factor GeoTrust's CA key and issue a new
certificate.
Questions:
Am I now infringing on GeoTrust's IP rights? Or have, rather, I made
myself a co-owner in said rights on this particular key?
Have I broken any law? If not, should what I have done be illegal?
-Jack
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