CAs, Name Constraints, and a Business Opportunity

Warning!  I am about to bring up a topic that others have talked about before: Name Constraints (as it applies to SSL, that is).  Name Constraints is a way for a Certificate Authority (a CA) to say “All of the certificates issued by me should only be used for these domains (x.net, or y.z.com, or all of .org, etc.).  Any other certificate should not be trusted.”

Name Constraints are not supported by everything yet, but they are supported in some places.  Not only would Name Constraints make things easier for sysadmins, it would give a new revenue stream for CAs, browsers would have an easier time accepting them, and it would “streamline the user experience” (whatever that means).

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