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The foundation of a more secure web: Google Trust Services

security.googleblog.com

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Re: The foundation of a more secure web: Google Trust Services

#51

Post by tptacek »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #30
algesten wrote: post #3

I have no love for most the major CAs I've interacted with, but this feels wrong, though I can't quite pin point why. Perhaps just a general feeling that all the internet eggs are being put, one by one, in one single alphabet basket.

> this feels wrong, though I can't quite pin point why. It's unusual for a root CA to be run by a service that otherwise has nothing to do with CA issuance, for the primary purpose of issuing certificates for that service's first-party sites, and not for third-party sites. I can't think of a single other example of a single-purpose root CA like this. (The announcement mentions that they might use this to operate as a…

This is not in fact all that unusual at all.

Re: The foundation of a more secure web: Google Trust Services

#52

Post by tptacek »

wbond wrote: post #41

It is interesting to see that Google decided to opt for NIST P-384 curve for the root certs it is going to have valid until 2036. Brian Smith has argued for supporting only P-256, P-384 and Curve25519: https://briansmith.org/GFp-0 . That said, Mozilla decided to continue to advertize support for P-521 for NSS ( https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1128792 ). P-256 and P-384 are widely supported in various TLS…

The P-curves are "unsafe" (according to that rubric) in the sense that there are several ways to make mistakes writing curve libraries with them; you have to be more careful using them than you do with Curve25519.

Re: The foundation of a more secure web: Google Trust Services

#54

Post by JoshTriplett »

algesten wrote: post #40
JoshTriplett wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this feels wrong, though I can't quite pin point why. It's unusual for a root CA to be run by a service that otherwise has nothing to do with CA issuance, for the primary purpose of issuing certificates for that service's first-party sites, and not for third-party sites. I can't think of a single other example of a single-purpose root CA like this. (The announcement mentions that they might use this to operate as a…

I guess if NSA/FBI forces google to hand over the CA keys, they kan orchestrate undetectable MITM-attacks. I wonder why browser won't automatically store the fingerprint for every HTTPS-certificate it encounters and throw up a fuzz to the user if a certificate changes without any good reason?

Such a MITM attack could only happen once (per CA); doing so would burn a CA, as browsers would then stop trusting it. Certificate Transparency (which many CAs already do and which will become mandatory for all CAs in 2017) ensures that browsers only trust certificates whose issuance gets publicly logged.

Re: The foundation of a more secure web: Google Trust Services

#55

Post by crdoconnor »

algesten wrote: post #3

I have no love for most the major CAs I've interacted with, but this feels wrong, though I can't quite pin point why. Perhaps just a general feeling that all the internet eggs are being put, one by one, in one single alphabet basket.

If they use their browser dominance to gain the upper hand in the certificate issuance market that seems like a violation of anti-trust law.

Re: The foundation of a more secure web: Google Trust Services

#56

Post by mixedCase »

zokier wrote: post #15

It feels like a new age of internet when we have stuff like Googles private .goog gtld with domains signed by Googles private Root CA. It's not strictly bad (and I'm not complaining), but it feels bit silly/weird/scary/... .

Most of us adjudicate too much value to TLDs. It's an artificially scarce resource and most people here learned about the Internet when these TLDs were even scarcer.

Re: The foundation of a more secure web: Google Trust Services

#57

Post by mastax »

reddiric wrote: post #4

"If you are building products that intends to connect to a Google property moving forward you need to at a minimum include the above Root Certificates." The foundation of a more secure web apparently requires you to trust Google with the entire internet, using their properties as leverage to force it to be so.

Is Google less trustworthy than Go Daddy? Or CNNIC? Or the Hong Kong Post Office? Yes the CA system is broken but framing that as an anti-Google argument seems silly.

Re: The foundation of a more secure web: Google Trust Services

#58

Post by JoshTriplett »

tptacek wrote: post #51
JoshTriplett wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this feels wrong, though I can't quite pin point why. It's unusual for a root CA to be run by a service that otherwise has nothing to do with CA issuance, for the primary purpose of issuing certificates for that service's first-party sites, and not for third-party sites. I can't think of a single other example of a single-purpose root CA like this. (The announcement mentions that they might use this to operate as a…

This is not in fact all that unusual at all.

I've seen many examples of non-root CAs for such purposes, but it seems unusual (though not completely unheard-of) among root CAs. I dug through Mozilla's standard certificate bundle, and found very few such certificates. Amazon has one, but they also use that to issue certificates through AWS. Someone elsewhere in the thread mentioned a DoD root CA. The certificate store has some certificates from companies like Dell; no idea what they use those for. Who else has a root CA used exclusively for first-party certification?

In any case, I was only trying to suggest why this seemed odd, based in part on the availability heuristic: whether this is a common practice or not, it doesn't seem like something people (even people who regularly read about changes or events in the CA landscape) would see regularly.

Re: The foundation of a more secure web: Google Trust Services

#59

Post by JoshTriplett »

infogulch wrote: post #50
algesten wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if NSA/FBI forces google to hand over the CA keys, they kan orchestrate undetectable MITM-attacks. I wonder why browser won't automatically store the fingerprint for every HTTPS-certificate it encounters and throw up a fuzz to the user if a certificate changes without any good reason?

Why aren't new certificates for the same domain signed by the old (perhaps expired) certificate (recursively) in addition to the whole CA model? This proves that whoever has the new cert used to have the old cert. A browser would save a copy of a certificate the first time it visits a site, then when it visits again later it could request the chain of certs back to the first one it ever encountered. Past certs verify…

You'd need a backup plan for sites that have transferred ownership, or for sites that needed to revoke the old key due to compromise. And once you have that backup plan, how would you decide whether to care if that additional signature exists?

Re: The foundation of a more secure web: Google Trust Services

#60

Post by ori_b »

mastax wrote: post #57
reddiric wrote: post #4

"If you are building products that intends to connect to a Google property moving forward you need to at a minimum include the above Root Certificates." The foundation of a more secure web apparently requires you to trust Google with the entire internet, using their properties as leverage to force it to be so.

Is Google less trustworthy than Go Daddy? Or CNNIC? Or the Hong Kong Post Office? Yes the CA system is broken but framing that as an anti-Google argument seems silly.

Google isn't less trustworthy, but it is far closer to being a monopoly. I would like to bias towards a more decentralized infrastructure.

Especially since Google is US based.

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