PKI Interoperability: Still an Issue? A Solution in the X.509 Realm

Ahmad Samer Wazan (1) , Romain Laborde (2) , François Barrere (2) , Abdelmalek Benzekri (2) , David W. Chadwick (3)

1 IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris]
2 UT3 - Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier
3 University of Kent [Canterbury]

There exist many obstacles that slow the global adoption of public key infrastructure (PKI) technology. The PKI interoperability problem, being poorly understood, is one of the most confusing. In this paper, we clarify the PKI interoperability issue by exploring both the juridical and technical domains. We demonstrate the origin of the PKI interoperability problem by determining its root causes, the latter being legal, organizational and technical differences between countries, which mean that relying parties have no one to rely on. We explain how difficult it is to harmonize them. Finally, we propose to handle the interoperability problem from the trust management point of view, by introducing the role of a trust broker which is in charge of helping relying parties make informed decisions about X.509 certificates.

Mots clés: Interoperability; PKI; X.509; Trust

Domaines: Informatique [cs]

Ahmad Samer Wazan, Romain Laborde, François Barrere, Abdelmalek Benzekri, David W. Chadwick. PKI Interoperability: Still an Issue? A Solution in the X.509 Realm. 8th World Conference on Information Security Education (WISE), Jul 2013, Auckland, New Zealand. pp.68-82, ⟨10.1007/978-3-642-39377-8_8⟩. ⟨hal-01463660⟩