Bulletproof TLS Newsletter is a free periodic newsletter bringing you commentary and news surrounding SSL/TLS and Internet PKI, designed to keep you informed about the latest developments in this space. Received monthly by more than 50,000 subscribers. Written by Ivan Ristić.
30 Nov 2023
The European Union continues on its path to eIDAS 2.0, which includes the controversial Article 45 that basically tells browsers which certification authorities (CAs) to trust. eIDAS, which stands for electronic identification and trust services, is a framework aimed at regulating electronic transactions. As part of this proposal, the EU wants to support embedding identities in website certificates. In essence, the goal is to bring back Extended Validation (EV) certificates.
Browsers—of course—don’t want that, but the real problem is the fact that, with the legal text as it is at the moment, in its near-final form, the EU gets the final say in which CAs are trusted. The global security community has been fighting against Article 45 for more than two years now; we wrote about it on a couple of occasions. As of November 2023, the European Council and Parliament have reached a provisional agreement. The next step is for the law to be put to the vote, which is usually a formality.
In November, ahead of the crucial vote, the campaigns intensified, with browser providers (Google, Mozilla), civil society groups (EFF), other companies, and more than 500 security experts voicing their concerns. In the end, it didn’t help: the bureaucrats drafted the text and voted behind closed doors with little acknowledgement of the protests.
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