Weakness in the keyserver network (Was Re: Global Directory signatures)

[David Shaw]

On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 02:13:39PM +0100, Johan Wevers wrote:
> David Shaw wrote:
> 
> >To make an extreme example, say there was a rogue signer, pumping out
> >thousands of signatures a day onto the keyserver network, all set to
> >expire in a week.
> 
> Or worse, signatures that don't expire at all. If they're from 10000
> different keys, it's much more difficult to get rid of them.

Indeed.  Honestly, I'm not sure of what the answer is here, or even if
there is one without a redesign of the keyserver net.  A CA that leaks
onto the keyserver net can be handled fine by a "no sigs from key
xxxxx" rule, but an attacker would use using different keys to make
the sigs to get around the rule (or just upload different keys
directly).

David