Policy-Discussion

[Russell Smith <mr-russ AT pws.com.au>]

Dear Policy Listers,

I've had a short discussion on IRC regarding the possible merits of 
allowing multiple people to administer a domain if they can show they 
control the domain via the standard email probe.

From my point of view, I am a contractor who would like to encourage 
clients to sign up with CACert, but at the same time it is easier for me 
to manage their domains.  Some are organizations, others are not. 
Currently it's not possible for anybody except the CACert office to 
verify organization entities.

Anther issue also arises where I may want an employee to administer a 
domain we are working with.  However unless I am an Organization it is 
not currently possible to delegate domain management to others without 
handing over full rights and having all your certificates revoked.

This gives rise to a couple of ideas and options

1. Attempt to encourage people to do the work to get organizational 
assurance. (Not always possible)
2. Allow multiple people to manage a domain
3. Allow control to be delegated for domains which a single user still 
owns the domain.
4. Do nothing

The question has also been raised about whether this is functionality 
that the general user would want.  There has been a large discussion on 
the automation of certification creation and this may fit into that in 
some as well.

If multiple people were to be able to manage a domain, the issue of 
someone having >50 points, and somebody having <50 point could be a 
problem.  I would suspect that most people want at least 50 points, and 
should get there first anyway.  So unless you and the person you are 
delegating to has >50 point, you can't delegate.

Hopefully that all makes sense and a few people would be willing to 
offer opinion on this.

If this is approved in some fashion or another as an option, I will be 
taking on the job to produce the patch that will implement this 
functionality.  So the question is not of who and when, but of if and what.

Regards

Russell Smith
Blaze I.T.