Mathematical Mesh 3.0 Part IX: The Trust Mesh
draft-hallambaker-mesh-trust-08
Network Working Group P. M. Hallam-Baker
Internet-Draft ThresholdSecrets.com
Intended status: Informational 13 January 2021
Expires: 17 July 2021
Mathematical Mesh 3.0 Part IX: The Trust Mesh
draft-hallambaker-mesh-trust-08
Abstract
This paper extends Shannon's concept of a 'work factor' as applied to
evaluation of cryptographic algorithms to provide an objective
measure of the practical security offered by a protocol or
infrastructure design. Considering the hypothetical work factor
based on an informed estimate of the probable capabilities of an
attacker with unknown resources provides a better indication of the
relative strength of protocol designs than the computational work
factor of the best-known attack.
The social work factor is a measure of the trustworthiness of a
credential issued in a PKI based on the cost of having obtained the
credential through fraud at a certain point in time. Use of the
social work factor allows evaluation of Certificate Authority based
trust models and peer to peer (Web of Trust) models to be evaluated
in the same framework. The analysis demonstrates that both
approaches have limitations and that in certain applications, a
blended model is superior to either by itself.
The final section of the paper describes a proposal to realize this
blended model using the Mathematical Mesh.
[Note to Readers]
Discussion of this draft takes place on the MATHMESH mailing list
(mathmesh@ietf.org), which is archived at
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/search/?email_list=mathmesh.
This document is also available online at
http://mathmesh.com/Documents/draft-hallambaker-mesh-trust.html.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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Table of Contents
1. Work Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Computational Work Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Hypothetical Work Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3. Known Unknowns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4. Defense in Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5. Mutual Reinforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.6. Safety in Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.7. Cost Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.8. Social Work Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.8.1. Related work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2. The problem of trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.1. Existing approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1.1. Trust After First Use (TAFU) . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.1.2. Direct Trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.1.3. Certificate Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.1.4. Web of Trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.1.5. Chained notary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.1.6. A blended approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3. The Mesh of Trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1. Master Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.2. Uniform Data Fingerprints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.3. Strong Internet Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.4. Trust notary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
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