[Revocation Circumstances] Phase 1 kickoff and participation

[Ben Wilson]

Hi all,

As mentioned during our recent SCWG teleconference, I am beginning Phase 1 of the work on the revocation circumstances listed in TLS BR §4.9.1.1.

This effort will not be conducted through a new subcommittee, but will remain open to participation by interested members of the Server Certificate Working Group, and substantive discussions will take place on this mailing list using [Revocation Circumstances] in the subject line.

Thank you to those who have already expressed interest in contributing. Anyone else who would like to participate more actively may contact me to join the smaller, informal coordination thread or receive access to the working materials once the repository is established. The off-list thread will be used principally to coordinate tasks and materials, rather than to make substantive decisions.

As noted previously, Phase 1 will focus on the underlying circumstances that should require revocation. The initial work will include:

• developing a taxonomy of revocation circumstances;
• comparing that taxonomy with the existing 16 circumstances;
• identifying gaps, overlaps, ambiguities, overly broad catch-all provisions, and concepts that should be separated;
• testing the analysis against actual incidents and hypothetical examples; and
• preparing proposed revisions and explanatory examples.

Mapping the circumstances to CRL reason codes and considering relying-party behavior will be reserved for later phases.

Thanks,

Ben