Just wondering ... it does seem less far-fetched in the light of the swiss crypto ag revelations.
Ask HN: Is Let's Encrypt the new swiss crypto ag?
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Re: Ask HN: Is Let's Encrypt the new swiss crypto ag?
#2Betteridge's Law says "No" ... and given certificates are generated locally, I don't see how the certificates themselves could be compromised. The trust in a certificate (or trust in a false certificate) could potentially be manipulated in by and upstream party.
Re: Ask HN: Is Let's Encrypt the new swiss crypto ag?
#3Betteridge's Law says "No" ... and given certificates are generated locally, I don't see how the certificates themselves could be compromised. The trust in a certificate (or trust in a false certificate) could potentially be manipulated in by and upstream party.
The 'law' is more of an observation and generally applies to headlines. I feel you are being overly dismissive, as a question is being asked is in a dedicated section. There have been instances of CA's, most notably Symantec, which have turned out to be bad apples. There is a constant stream of news dispelling myths surrounding seemingly reputable firms regarding encryption/privacy. Whether these incidences are related or not, discussions like these need to be afforded a lot more leeway than most, and fleshed out, rather than being stifled.
Re: Ask HN: Is Let's Encrypt the new swiss crypto ag?
#4Are you familiar with how certificates and CAs work in general? You don't receive a certificate from the CA, they just sign and attest that the one you made is owned by you. The ways CAs go bad is not breaking any crypto but by signing a certificate that you don't own. This vulnerability is well known and LE takes industry-leading steps to mitigate it via the certificate transparency program which is a permanent auditable log of all certificates they sign.
Re: Ask HN: Is Let's Encrypt the new swiss crypto ag?
#5Are you familiar with how certificates and CAs work in general? You don't receive a certificate from the CA, they just sign and attest that the one you made is owned by you. The ways CAs go bad is not breaking any crypto but by signing a certificate that you don't own. This vulnerability is well known and LE takes industry-leading steps to mitigate it via the certificate transparency program which is a permanent audi…
From my understanding of the certificate transparency program does not mitigate the threat of them simply not disclosing a certificate they signed. Ultimately this still gives them MitM capabilities as long as they control the traffic or am I mistaken?
Re: Ask HN: Is Let's Encrypt the new swiss crypto ag?
#6Betteridge's Law says "No" ... and given certificates are generated locally, I don't see how the certificates themselves could be compromised. The trust in a certificate (or trust in a false certificate) could potentially be manipulated in by and upstream party.
The 'law' is more of an observation and generally applies to headlines. I feel you are being overly dismissive, as a question is being asked is in a dedicated section. There have been instances of CA's, most notably Symantec, which have turned out to be bad apples. There is a constant stream of news dispelling myths surrounding seemingly reputable firms regarding encryption/privacy. Whether these incidences are relat…
I'm not arguing against having the discussion ... my point is that trust in any certificate is reliant on its chain-of-trust and so if Let's Encrypt has this problem, you can't trust other certificates either. But the implication in the head-line is that the NSA/CIA are controlling Let's Encrypt. If that's true, then we've got a real problem ... on the other hand, I think other CAs have shown that, through incompetence or malice, they can't always be trusted either.
Re: Ask HN: Is Let's Encrypt the new swiss crypto ag?
#7Are you familiar with how certificates and CAs work in general? You don't receive a certificate from the CA, they just sign and attest that the one you made is owned by you. The ways CAs go bad is not breaking any crypto but by signing a certificate that you don't own. This vulnerability is well known and LE takes industry-leading steps to mitigate it via the certificate transparency program which is a permanent audi…
From my understanding of the certificate transparency program does not mitigate the threat of them simply not disclosing a certificate they signed. Ultimately this still gives them MitM capabilities as long as they control the traffic or am I mistaken?
When certificates are submitted to CT logs, they are given Signed Certificate Timestamp by the log, which can be attached to the certificate. Chrome and other major browsers require that every certificate has them attached and signed by a trusted log operator, guaranteeing that each certificate is submitted to a CT log.
https://github.com/chromium/ct-policy/blob/master/ct_policy....
Re: Ask HN: Is Let's Encrypt the new swiss crypto ag?
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 'law' is more of an observation and generally applies to headlines. I feel you are being overly dismissive, as a question is being asked is in a dedicated section. There have been instances of CA's, most notably Symantec, which have turned out to be bad apples. There is a constant stream of news dispelling myths surrounding seemingly reputable firms regarding encryption/privacy. Whether these incidences are relat…
I'm not arguing against having the discussion ... my point is that trust in any certificate is reliant on its chain-of-trust and so if Let's Encrypt has this problem, you can't trust other certificates either. But the implication in the head-line is that the NSA/CIA are controlling Let's Encrypt. If that's true, then we've got a real problem ... on the other hand, I think other CAs have shown that, through incompeten…
HTTPS certs provide extraordinary limited security in any case, there is no need to single out lets encrypt.
If you can receive a http request destined to the target domain (e.g. via MITM near the real target, DNS hijacking, or route hijacking, or MITM near a CA) then you can get a cert issued for that domain by pretty much any popular CA.
With security so limited what would be the purpose of compromising lets encrypt?
Re: Ask HN: Is Let's Encrypt the new swiss crypto ag?
#9I suppose it would be trivial for them to issue compromised certificates or record the private key in a targetted attack for a specific domain without anyone noticing.
Re: Ask HN: Is Let's Encrypt the new swiss crypto ag?
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
From my understanding of the certificate transparency program does not mitigate the threat of them simply not disclosing a certificate they signed. Ultimately this still gives them MitM capabilities as long as they control the traffic or am I mistaken?
When certificates are submitted to CT logs, they are given Signed Certificate Timestamp by the log, which can be attached to the certificate. Chrome and other major browsers require that every certificate has them attached and signed by a trusted log operator, guaranteeing that each certificate is submitted to a CT log. https://github.com/chromium/ct-policy/blob/master/ct_policy....
Seems like this is currently disabled in Firefox [1]. Do you have any sources for Safari or MS Edge?