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Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web
81–90 of 476 posts
Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web
#82A little vague on details. Apache only or also Nginx? Who is the CA? No way I am running something like this on a production machine. I like the idea but I would rather have the client just output the certificate and key in a dir so I can put the files where I need them and I can configure the changes to my webserver. Also this does not solve the issue of a CA issuing certificates for your domain and doing MITM.
We're putting out a protocol for requesting certs and validating domain control (that our new CA will support -- and we'll be cross-signed to work in all mainstream browsers) and we've already written a client for it that integrates with Apache and can edit your Apache config.
If you're comfortable editing your own Apache configs, then you'll only need to use the client to obtain the cert and not to manage its installation long-term. (The client does need to reconfigure the web server while obtaining the cert as part of the CA validation process.)
The protocol is openly published, so you can write your own client too, or follow the protocol steps manually -- or any web server developer or hosting platform can develop their own alternative client.
There does need to be some client to speak the protocol, but there's no attempt to force you to use it to manage your certs and configs if that's not what you want. The convenience is aimed at people who don't understand how to install a cert, or who think that process is too time-consuming.
Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I totally agree that CAs are a racket. There's zero competition in that market and the gate-keepers (Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple, and Google) keep it that way (mostly Microsoft however). That being said: Identity verification is important as the encryption is worthless if you can be trivially man-in-the-middled. All encryption assures is that two end points can only read communications between one another, it makes no…
It is not a legitimate requirement. HTTP can be man-in-the-middled passively, and without detection; making dragnets super easy. In order for HTTPS self signed certs to be effectively man-in-the-middled the attacker needs to be careful to only selectively MITM because if the attacker does it indiscriminately clients can record what public key was used. The content provider can have a process that sits on top of a VPN…
> HTTP can be man-in-the-middled passively, and without detection; making dragnets super easy.
Nothing can be man-in-the-middled passively, that makes no sense. That isn't what a MitM is. It requires active involvement by its very nature.
> In order for HTTPS self signed certs to be effectively man-in-the-middled the attacker needs to be careful to only selectively MITM because if the attacker does it indiscriminately clients can record what public key was used.
I genuinely don't understand what you're trying to say.
> The content provider can have a process that sits on top of a VPN / Tor that periodically requests a resource from the server and if it detects that the service is being MITM then it can shut down the service and a certificate authority can be brought in.
If the MitM originates from a specific location (e.g. a single Starbucks, a single hotel, an airport, etc) it would never be detected by that method.
> Also, all this BS about how HTTPS implies security is besides the grandparent's point: certificates and encryption are currently conflated to the great detriment of security, and they need not be.
Only MitM protections AND encryption provide a secure connection when together. Individually they're insecure.
If someone wants to come up with a security scheme which doesn't depend on certificates that would be fine. You just have to solve the encryption issue (easy) and the identity issue (hard).
Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web
#84Won't people need to have LetsEncrypt CA certificate installed on their computers to not get that red SSL incorrect certificate thing? Other than that, this is awesome.
IdenTrust will be cross-signing our roots while we apply to root programs.
Thanks for the clarification! You might want to add that point to your technical how-it-works section[1]. I was wondering how older browsers would accept a new CA's signature.
Also, I really wish AOL would have donated their root certs to y'all[2] so you didn't have to set up a whole new CA.
[1]: https://letsencrypt.org/howitworks/technology/
[2]: https://moderncrypto.org/mail-archive/messaging/2014/000618....
Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web
#85One possible solution is a BitCoin-like block chain of certificate proof, so that a website's certificate can be verified against the domain without a central authority.
That doesn't even remotely work, who has the private keys to authorize the certificates?
Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web
#86I'm so excited for this. I know both the people working on the team from the University of Michigan, and both are extremely smart people passionate about web encryption.
Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
The warning pages are really ridiculous. Why doesn't every HTTP page show a warning you have to click through? But it's not like MITM attacks are not real. CAs don't realistically do a thing about them, but it is true that you can't trust that your connection is private based on TLS alone. (unless you're doing certificate pinning or you have some other solution).
You're absolutely right. From first principles, HTTP should have a louder warning than self-signed HTTPS. Our hope is that Let's Encrypt will reduce the barriers to CA-signed HTTPS sufficiently, that it will become realistic for browsers to show warning indicators on HTTP. If they did that today, millions of sites would complain, "why are you forcing us to pay money to CAs, and deal with the incredible headache of ce…
Thanks for doing this. It's really great and its something that clearly needs to happen.
The next step will be to replace the CA system with something actually secure, but that comes after we move the web to a place where most websites are at least trying.
Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web
#88So, one CA to rule then all? There's a scenario (simplified for illustration, but entirely possible) that's normally not a huge risk because there are many CAs, and they are private, for-profit companies that have an economic incentive to protect you and your certificate's ability to assure end users that a conversation's privacy won't be compromised. 1) browser requests site via SSL 2) MITM says, "let's chat - here'…
Let's Encrypt is going to publish records of everything it signs, either with Certificate Transparency or some other mechanism. Browsers will be able to check any cert signed by the Let's Encrypt CA against the published list. If there's a discrepancy, that will be immediately detectable.
Out of curiosity, what if MITM says, "include me in this list for IP "? If the check is not done in a way that solves the byzantine generals problem, I don't see how this feature provides any more protection, other than one more hoop to jump through.
Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
"ISRG will be operating a new root CA for this project." Does that mean every client/browser will need to be updated to include the new CA? Or will it somehow be signed by other (competing) CAs? I like the idea of this project, and I think it's a great thing for the Internet - I just worry that it will take a long time for it to be usable in practice.
No, it will be cross-signed and provide the chain so that it will work immediately in all mainstream browsers.
That's good to hear. Thanks!
Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web
#90While this is nice and I'm happy to see such a product coming, I still don't see a free TLS solution for my smaller projects. Heroku will still charge me $20/mo for TLS even if I have my certificate. Cloudflare will also want to charge me to inspect TLS. I could drop both and get a Linode but then that costs too and is a pain to setup a server myself.