FPS as an attack surface

[dmarti]

This is an expanded version of the scenario I mentioned at the ad-hoc meeting on August 12.

1. An independent publishing company, located in a jurisdiction where major browser vendors do not have employees or law firms, runs a controversial story about political corruption.

2. Politicians who are named in the story hire people who familiar with the FPS governance process to challenge the publisher's FPS. They create fake public records (that might be obviously fake to a knowledgeable business person in the publisher's jurisdiction, but appear real to the browser vendor and/or FPS enforcement organization) and successfully get the publisher's FPS revoked.

3. Browsers cease to recognize the publisher's FPS, causing them to lose ad revenue and business relationships.

A similar targeted attack on FPS could also take place against an FPS of product sites after a controversial decision to sponsor content or withdraw sponsorship.

Some FPS owners will be able to get this kind of thing fixed quickly because of the informal tech support system for policy-related web breakage. Somebody who follows you on Twitter or a back channel knows somebody, and they fix it. Or an Internet journalist decides it's worth a story. Less well-connected sites are at greater risk of having their FPSs broken, so are less likely to be confident in being able to use this feature.

[dmarti]

Updated the description to make it clear how this is relevant to #56.

If FPS validity can depend on corporate ownership records, which are different across many different jurisdictions, then there are more opportunities for errors and deception..