Desert Seeding Policy

Status: CAcert Policy Status == POLICY
Last Edited: 2009-08-13

Preamble

This policy is a subsidiary policy to the Assurance Policy as defined in point 6 of that policy. All definitions of that policy apply here as well.

The purpose of this policy is facilitate the extension of the CAcert we of trust into areas where no or few assurers are currently present. In order for such a process to take hold it is necessary that any such seeding results in enough new assurers in a location to issue 100 assurance points. At the same time it is necessary for the integrity of the web of trust that the four eyes principle currently employed and defined in the Assurance Policy remain in force.

For this reason this policy only applies to CAcert deserts. A desert is defined as an area of the world where getting assured using the regular assurance process would place an undue burden on a member or is impossible to accomplish. The Assurance Officer is required to judge whether a this condition is met.

Third Party Process

Principle

The principle of this process is to use someone within the desert area that is not related to CAcert, yet has knowledge of the local documents and customs to make the Assurance Statement. This pertains especially to point 5 of that statement and the verification of that data.

Process

Circular Process

Principle

The principle of this process is to establish a peripheral seed of the web of trust by establishing a new mini web of trust under the supervision of a CAcert Assurer.

Process

Supervision

All desert seeding processes described and defined in this policy are supervised by the Assurance Officer and require her approval. On a case by case basis.

Reporting

The Assurance Officer is required to report to the management committee of CAcert Inc. on a regular basis on all desert seeding assurances approved by her for review.

The report for each event must include as a minimum:

In order for the Assurance Officer to write her report to the board, these data must be in the report written by the Assurer to her. Therefore this also specifies the minimum requirements of that report.