Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I don't think we need free certificates, I think we need people who can carefully evaluate an untrusted certificate and make their own decision. The whole idea of a CA is pretty broken at current scale. Meanwhile, self-signed certificates are seen as a red flag. Should they be?
How can you (or an 'average user' whoever that might be) carefully evaluate untrusted certificates? Wouldn't i need some kind of detached information like the certificates hash signed by an already known gpg key? The CA idea is broken but not too easy to replace. http://convergence.io/ could be a few steps forward.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 2
61–70 of 113 posts
Re: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 2
#62To those saying HTTP2 should require HTTPS: do you really want to be stuck with our shitty CA model for even longer?
Other ways of keying may become available in the future, especially as we go through TLS 1.3 to future versions.
Re: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 2
#63So TLS still isn't mandatory? Seems like a missed opportunity.
The big pushbacks came mostly from middlebox-makers, proxies and the like. Unsurprising.
The market will decide. I'm sure the remaining browsers will make their own decisions, and I expect Opera and IE to fall on the TLS side, and then the decision will be effectively made.
The TLS WG will watch the result with interest, I'm sure, looking forward into TLS 1.4/2.0/whatever...
Re: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 2
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
If only it were that simple. As it stands now, the problem with HTTP/HTTPS is that encryption is an all-or-nothing proposition. There should be three modes supported: 1. Unencrypted (for casual/ad-hoc web servers serving cache-able static assets) 2. Encrypted-untrusted (for casual/ad-hoc web servers that just want to thwart basic Wi-Fi cookie sniffing) 3. Encrypted-trusted (for most established websites) Right now, #…
Is encrypted-untrusted really a good idea? MITM attacks over wifi are nearly as easy as cookie sniffing. What sort of sites would fit into this category?
Encrypted-untrusted prevents mass passive surveillance, and requires it to be active MITM. And - as I've pointed out on the TLS WG list a few times - if an attacker can't tell you're being opportunistic, they might not be willing to risk being detected. We can make them take that risk by reducing the visible distinguishers there.
Re: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 2
#65There is so much open wifi nowadays that non-https should really start to be considered harmful. A large portion of website visitors are probably connecting via Starbucks, airport wifi, etc., which means their session cookies are basically public information. So even given the mass surveillance problems, non-https connections need to start being treated as Bad Practice and discouraged by the sysadmin community.
If only it were that simple. As it stands now, the problem with HTTP/HTTPS is that encryption is an all-or-nothing proposition. There should be three modes supported: 1. Unencrypted (for casual/ad-hoc web servers serving cache-able static assets) 2. Encrypted-untrusted (for casual/ad-hoc web servers that just want to thwart basic Wi-Fi cookie sniffing) 3. Encrypted-trusted (for most established websites) Right now, #…
Going forward hopefully TLS 1.3 or a later version will be able to encrypt enough of the exchange that a passive sniffer can't necessarily tell between 2 or 3 - hopefully they won't be able to see the certificate, or there'll be a way to negotiate an anonymous DH as a minimum that an attacker cannot observe (without that in place right now, I've argued against aDH remaining in TLS 1.3).
Re: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 2
#66There is so much open wifi nowadays that non-https should really start to be considered harmful. A large portion of website visitors are probably connecting via Starbucks, airport wifi, etc., which means their session cookies are basically public information. So even given the mass surveillance problems, non-https connections need to start being treated as Bad Practice and discouraged by the sysadmin community.
At the very least, regular http should support starttls to allow encryption. That at least requires your attacker to go to the trouble of man in the middle.
This is why the SMTPS port is being resurrected, and STARTTLS-type upgrades are not considered good practice in future - port assignments in future are likely to take that into account.
Re: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 2
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is encrypted-untrusted really a good idea? MITM attacks over wifi are nearly as easy as cookie sniffing. What sort of sites would fit into this category?
Absolutely everywhere you use HTTP now. It's never worse than plaintext, and it's an effective replacement for it. Encrypted-untrusted prevents mass passive surveillance, and requires it to be active MITM. And - as I've pointed out on the TLS WG list a few times - if an attacker can't tell you're being opportunistic, they might not be willing to risk being detected. We can make them take that risk by reducing the vis…
My question is given that what is the purpose of encrypted-untrusted? It's no more secure than HTTP for anything that uses session cookies or the like. Sure the connection is encrypted, but then all you are doing is stopping people seeing that you are accessing My Little Pony shows on YouTube. If it's a public hotspot at the coffee shop, they can probably see you watching it (IRL) anyway. Given the connection is untrusted, it wouldn't be hard for the NSA to do a MITM attack at the ISP level.
Re: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 2
#68Re: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 2
#69There is so much open wifi nowadays that non-https should really start to be considered harmful. A large portion of website visitors are probably connecting via Starbucks, airport wifi, etc., which means their session cookies are basically public information. So even given the mass surveillance problems, non-https connections need to start being treated as Bad Practice and discouraged by the sysadmin community.
If only it were that simple. As it stands now, the problem with HTTP/HTTPS is that encryption is an all-or-nothing proposition. There should be three modes supported: 1. Unencrypted (for casual/ad-hoc web servers serving cache-able static assets) 2. Encrypted-untrusted (for casual/ad-hoc web servers that just want to thwart basic Wi-Fi cookie sniffing) 3. Encrypted-trusted (for most established websites) Right now, #…
Re: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 2
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely everywhere you use HTTP now. It's never worse than plaintext, and it's an effective replacement for it. Encrypted-untrusted prevents mass passive surveillance, and requires it to be active MITM. And - as I've pointed out on the TLS WG list a few times - if an attacker can't tell you're being opportunistic, they might not be willing to risk being detected. We can make them take that risk by reducing the vis…
Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear... With encrypted-trusted if you try an MITM, unless you have a valid SSL key, the browser will show a big error screen and not send any cookies. With encrypted-untrusted the browser wouldn't do that, so the cookies would still be sent. You don't even need to route the connection, you could just present an "Error connection to server" page and most users would just think the wifi isn't wor…
For what it's worth, YouTube does use HTTPS for My Little Pony shows. Actually, there's a hidden service on Tor for that. (I'm not even joking.)