[kictanet] [Skunkworks] Fwd: Kenya’s PKI Destined for Failure?

Thu Mar 21 16:24:39 EAT 2013

Ali and Brian +1
CCK can be the CA for the government but there has to be Private Sector based CAs as well to avoid conflict of interest.  What may seem complex when broken down may not be all that bad as evidenced in this paper:
http://www.articsoft.com/whitepapers/AustPKI03SMr2.pdf
I especially like the not always waiting for the government "The business and Internet communities are not waiting for
some over-arching system to be put into

place by governments or agencies such as the UN. They are
seizing opportunities as they arise, putting in place systems that they trust and selecting their
own RCA – a PRIVATE RCA – if they select one at all. An example of this is the Secure
Electronic Transaction (SET) PKI developed by Visa and MasterCard. Figure 4 represents the basic SET PKI
as identified by Ford & Baum.  A new version of the SET protocol has recently been introduced,
sometimes referred to as 3DSET.  It

expects to provide the customer with a provable digital
receipt for a transaction, establishing the formality of the contract between the customer and the
merchant, something that was lacking in the original implementation."
VISA introduced 3D SET in 2000 to address issues with SET PKI.  3D SET simplifies the SET protocol into three domain Model:

  1) acquirer domain,

  2) issuer domain,

  3) interoperability
domain.

3D SET provide a flexible framework that allows banks and
acquirers to use their method to authenticate cardholders and merchants in a
transaction.
--- On Thu, 3/21/13, Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke> wrote:

From: Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] [Skunkworks] Fwd: Kenya’s PKI Destined for Failure?
To: lkimani at yahoo.com
Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Date: Thursday, March 21, 2013, 7:24 AM

Adam +1

And I give Brian the highest commendation for highlighting this issue. We must always try our level best to embrace the Multi-Stakeholder regime because as much as sometimes it sound like we are in the Tower of Babel ultimately the best solutions emerge (most of the time).

Regards

Ali
HusseinCEO, 3mice interactive media ltd
Partner, Telemedia Africa Ltd

 Tel: +254713601113

Twitter: @AliHKassim

Skype: abu-jomoLinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim

Blog: www.alyhussein.com

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 12:58 PM, Adam Nelson <adam at varud.com> wrote:

I think Brian's original point is well taken.  It's not ideal for a Korean government agency to hold such important keys.  However, Kenya can't just start its own key without at least a few years of lead time to get on a critical mass of browsers and operating systems by default (although it should start now just to get the ball rolling).  Finland and Turkey have CAs (although Turkey's was famously hacked with google.com signatures).

I would suggest that the certificate authority for this be one of the most trusted and common commercial ones - Equifax.  That's what Google uses and because they're commercial, will probably be more responsive to the needs of the government than a Koren agency.

-Adam
https://twitter.com/varud

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamcnelson

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 12:32 PM, Kivuva <Kivuva at transworldafrica.com> wrote:

Good points from Brian and Evans.
I think the elephant in the room is CCK to be the Root Certification Authority. PPP as Brian puts it might be the best way to go, although it has its own challenges, as we saw last year when KENIC was facing leadership challenges, and discord within the board. Other channels might be to tender for local companies to bid to be the RCA. This has worked very well in developed countries.

The issue of HR can be sorted if we are willing to empower our youth, by say Knowledge Transfer. Unfortunately, these Asians are not very keen in transferring such knowledge to the client side of the business since they want to be indispensable. But we can be forceful, and find ways to train people who will administer the NPKI system. We currently have thousands of security experts in the country, and we are willing to learn more.

Kind Regards.

-- 
______________________
Mwendwa Kivuva

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