Re: Commit signing

"Shawn O. Pearce" [off-list ref] wrote:

Andy Parkins [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Of course my favourite is git, but we were talking about the certificates 
needed by monotone for each developer.

One problem here is a certificate does not make a security system.
Obviously anyone can generate a certificate and claim anything they
want within it, just the same as you can claim anything you want in
a Git commit or tag.  What's needed is some external method that
all interested parties trust to verify a given certificate is
associated with a given entity.

What I'm actually doing in one particular environment is checking
the committer string against a database of known committer strings
associated with the current UNIX uid.

In this particular case access to the UNIX system is tightly
controlled.  Much paperwork must be filled out and signed by multiple
people, all of whom recognize the user on sight and know why they
need access to that system.  They also have checked the user's
identity through multiple background checks, fingerprinting, etc.

In other words the entire authentication problem was already solved,
trusting the UNIX uid just let Git plug into that seamlessly.

The problem is obviously harder on the Internet.  I've never
met anyone on this mailing list in person, but the quality (or
lack thereof sometimes) is evident in my work, and since its all
peer-reviewed anyway Junio finds little risk in incorporating the
good stuff into git.git.  No certificate required.

-- 
Shawn.