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Let's Encrypt is Trusted

letsencrypt.org

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Re: Let's Encrypt is Trusted

#211

Post by xorcist »

Natanael_L wrote: post #151
sgc wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he was saying they acted poorly by announcing on HN, but that he would prefer to grant someone trust rather than have it forced on him before he even knew about it. Not an easy task for a functional web, but it would obviously be better if possible.

There's many ways, all obnoxiously complex unless you go back to a CA-ish voluntary trust model. Keys as addresses (I2P, Tor hidden services, CJDNS) fixes a large part of the security problem, then on top of that you can add your choice of address translation. WoT style individualized trust webs? Trusted lists of name assignments DNS style? First-come first-serve á la Namecoin?

Not necessarily. You could also place domain validated trust in the registrars, to cryptographically verify their delegations. That would build a chain of trust which you in turn could use to validate keys for services in those domains.

Re: Let's Encrypt is Trusted

#212

Post by Spooky23 »

lorddoig wrote: post #81

Being told that you now trust someone with your secrets via a news website is a pleasingly succinct display of everything that's wrong with the CA model.

You would like to buy a knitted scarf from a yak herder in Ecuador. How do you propose that establish trust between you and the yak guy without an intermediary?

Re: Let's Encrypt is Trusted

#213

Post by Gregordinary »

bandrami wrote: post #187
alfredxing wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's Encrypt is also limited in that it issues Domain Validated certificates only. They aren't planning on issuing EV certificates (the "green address bar").

Probably because EV certs are a stupid idea. Do you really know the difference between Citi Bank and Citibank? No? Then EV hasn't saved you from being phished.

Well, you can't just order an EV cert for "Citi Bank" unless you have "Citi Bank" registered as a legal entity.

Section 9.2.1 (Page 9): https://cabforum.org/wp-content/uploads/EV-V1_5_7.pdf

In addition to using & verifying the legally registered name, it must be verified that there is a physical address for the business, if that address doesn't match the registered location, additional verification is required. There are additional provisions of verification as well. See section 11 of the same document.

Re: Let's Encrypt is Trusted

#214

Post by geofft »

lorddoig wrote: post #81

Being told that you now trust someone with your secrets via a news website is a pleasingly succinct display of everything that's wrong with the CA model.

Well. The CA model is community trust. I am told all the time, often by news websites, that my government now trusts or distrusts some other government, that my employer now trusts or distrusts or is even part of some other company, etc. I don't know if I personally think that the embargoes on Cuba should be lifted, or my company's new vice president is qualified for the role, or (if I worked for VMware) Dell is a good employer, or my savings should now be held by Bank of America, or whatever. But that's how living and working in a community works.

If you have secrets that are too sensitive for community trust, there are other mechanisms, but they typically have trouble scaling very much beyond continuing a previous face-to-face relationship. For the question of whether, say, news.ycombinator.com is who they say they are, I don't care enough to take Caltrain down to YC's offices and check a fingerprint posted on the wall, if they had one. What I care is that, at scale, the certificate authorities I trust will do a good job of verifying identities and running secure systems.

And I am not an auditor or pen-tester of large companies, and even if I were, I wouldn't want to spend my spare time auditing and pen-testing all CAs just before I can use the internet. (Importantly, I am not an auditor of web browsers or SSL implementations either, and since I outsource my trust to my browser / SSL stack, it's not useful for me to be skeptical of the CAs unless I'm also skeptical of the code.)

Remember that the CA model is bare-minimum security. (Some of the CAs find money in telling you otherwise, but they're stretching the truth.) All it's providing is the security that, in a perfect world, you would have gotten all along from DNS and IP. If you need anything more than bare-minimum security, there are tons of options, ranging from the SSL-based (EV, HPKP) to the completely unrelated (PGP, Pond, etc.). But the world needs a good mechanism for the simplest security that could possibly work, and the CA system seems to have settled into that role.

Re: Let's Encrypt is Trusted

#215

Post by icebraining »

ghshephard wrote: post #177
huskyr wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it took me just a couple of hours > to learn how the process is handled at StartSSL. Well, if something takes 'just a couple of hours' to learn i'll happily fork over some money to ease the pain. You can get certificates for $10/year nowadays.

"You can get certificates for $10/year nowadays." As a service to the community, could you name some places where you can do that?

Here's $5/y if you buy 3 years: https://www.ssls.com/ssl-certificates/comodo-positivessl

Re: Let's Encrypt is Trusted

#216

Post by rplnt »

harshreality wrote: post #104
cpach wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Care to elaborate?

New wannabe CA Entity B can approach an established CA entity A, convince A to sign B's root or intermediate cert, and then B can forge browser-trusted certs for every SSL website on the net that's not pinned. In this case, B is LetsEncrypt and is (hopefully) pretty solid, but that isn't always the case. Earlier this year, it became known that CNNIC had issued a CA cert to MCS Holdings (of Egypt), which then did bad…

Is it (technically) possible to limit CAs validity to certain subset of.. something? I.e. certain CAs could only be used to verify limited number of.. domains? something?

Re: Let's Encrypt is Trusted

#217

Post by bifurcation »

axx wrote: post #200

The big question: Does this mean we can now all use Let's Encrypt to generate new certificates without people running into problems?

In a word, yes.

When a server uses a Let's Encrypt certificate, a browser will consider it as issued under an IdenTrust root CA, which the browser trusts. So it will consider the Let's Encrypt certificate trusted.

Re: Let's Encrypt is Trusted

#218

Post by Natanael_L »

xorcist wrote: post #211
Natanael_L wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's many ways, all obnoxiously complex unless you go back to a CA-ish voluntary trust model. Keys as addresses (I2P, Tor hidden services, CJDNS) fixes a large part of the security problem, then on top of that you can add your choice of address translation. WoT style individualized trust webs? Trusted lists of name assignments DNS style? First-come first-serve á la Namecoin?

Not necessarily. You could also place domain validated trust in the registrars, to cryptographically verify their delegations. That would build a chain of trust which you in turn could use to validate keys for services in those domains.

That's the DNSSEC+DANE approach and that's still the same as the DNS approach I listed (trusted name registry lists), except that the address isn't an IP-address (or in other words, your domain's DNS server that says what IP addresses your subdomains have is itself identified by a public key).

Re: Let's Encrypt is Trusted

#219

Post by callahad »

axx wrote: post #200

The big question: Does this mean we can now all use Let's Encrypt to generate new certificates without people running into problems?

It means certs signed by Let's Encrypt will work just fine for people without any special setup. See https://helloworld.letsencrypt.org/ for an example.

This does not, however, mean that we can all start using Let's Encrypt. They're doing a slow roll-out before making certs generally available to the public. You can apply for the Beta at https://goo.gl/forms/kf0IGCeAk5, or wait until general availability later this year.

Re: Let's Encrypt is Trusted

#220

Post by eyuelt »

axx wrote: post #200

The big question: Does this mean we can now all use Let's Encrypt to generate new certificates without people running into problems?

Yep, if you get a certificate signed by one of their intermediate certificates, you're good to go.
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