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Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web

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Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web

#101

Post by mangeletti »

fragsworth wrote: post #85
mangeletti wrote: post #73

One 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?

What authorization is required in this scenario? I'm talking about a novel idea here, one that doesn't fit into the existing CA model. There would be no CA in this scenario; verification would be decentralized, based on shared information, not on knowledge of a secret.

Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web

#102

Post by Joeri »

pilif wrote: post #60
digitalsushi wrote: post #32

This certificate industry has been such a racket. It's not even tacit that there are two completely separate issues that certificates and encryption solve. They get conflated and non technical users rightly get confused about which thing is trying to solve a problem they aren't sure why they have. The certificate authorities are quite in love that the self-signed certificate errors are turning redder, bolder, and big…

> A self signed certificate warning means "Warning! The admin on the site you're connecting to wants this conversation to be private but it hasn't been proven that he has 200 bucks for us to say he's cool" no. It means "even though this connection is encrypted, there is no way to tell you whether you are currently talking to that site or to NSA which is forwarding all of your traffic to the site you're on". Treating…

Self-signed certificates are still better than http plain text. I understand not showing the padlock icon for self-signed certificates, I don't understand why you would warn people away from them when the worst case is that they are just as unsafe as when they use plain http. IMHO this browser behavior is completely nonsensical.

Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web

#104

Post by zymhan »

Joeri wrote: post #102
pilif wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A self signed certificate warning means "Warning! The admin on the site you're connecting to wants this conversation to be private but it hasn't been proven that he has 200 bucks for us to say he's cool" no. It means "even though this connection is encrypted, there is no way to tell you whether you are currently talking to that site or to NSA which is forwarding all of your traffic to the site you're on". Treating…

Self-signed certificates are still better than http plain text. I understand not showing the padlock icon for self-signed certificates, I don't understand why you would warn people away from them when the worst case is that they are just as unsafe as when they use plain http. IMHO this browser behavior is completely nonsensical.

The warning is designed to let people know that who you're talking to can't be proven, which is important when someone tries to impersonate a bank, or your email provider, or any other number of important sites.

Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web

#105

Post by schoen »

jackalope wrote: post #51
overshard wrote: post #11

The "How It Works" page, https://letsencrypt.org/howitworks/ , has me a bit worried. Anytime I see a __magic__ solution that has you running a single command to solve all your problems I immediately become suspicious at how much thought went into the actual issue. If I'm running a single web app on a single Ubuntu server using Apache then I'm set! If I'm running multiple web apps across multiple servers using a load…

I run Apache httpd, and there's no way I'd let a wizard anywhere near my configuration files or private keys, much less run it on a production server. I think it's about time for a free CA that is recognized by all clients, but you still need to establish a trust chain to exchange a CSR for a signed certificate. This service needs to be server agnostic. The barrier to adoption isn't configuration, and HTTPS isn't the…

There are lots of different barriers to adoption. With this project we are attacking several of them at the outset, including the cost of obtaining a certificate, and the inconvenience or difficulty of obtaining and installing it for users who don't do that every day.

Because of the open protocol we also aspire to support users with more complex configurations and requirements, who are absolutely welcome and encouraged to write their own implementations of the protocol and integrate with their own existing certificate management and configuration methods. If you think of other barriers to adoption that we can help with, please let us know and we'll try to address them; if you just want our certs for free, please get them and enjoy!

Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web

#106

Post by tomp »

iancarroll wrote: post #79
lazyjones wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no. It means "even though this connection is encrypted, there is no way to tell you whether you are currently talking to that site or to NSA which is forwarding all of your traffic to the site you're on". That would be correct if you could assume that the NSA couldn't fake certificates for websites. But it can, so it's wrong and misleading. It's certificate pinning, notary systems etc. that actually give some credi…

The NSA has no CA. The only attack they really have is brute force or server compromise - both of which undermine pinning.

NSA has NSL (national security letters with gag orders). There are CAs in the US. Mission accomplished.

Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web

#107

Post by joshmoz »

overshard wrote: post #11

The "How It Works" page, https://letsencrypt.org/howitworks/ , has me a bit worried. Anytime I see a __magic__ solution that has you running a single command to solve all your problems I immediately become suspicious at how much thought went into the actual issue. If I'm running a single web app on a single Ubuntu server using Apache then I'm set! If I'm running multiple web apps across multiple servers using a load…

What you're seeing today is demos, not the software in its final form. You're also seeing it demo'd with a focus on the most simple usage. There are, and will be, advanced options.

We'll be doing quite a bit of work based on user feedback between now and when we go live. We're well aware that we need to cater to a variety of types of users.

Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web

#108

Post by Spooky23 »

pilif wrote: post #60
digitalsushi wrote: post #32

This certificate industry has been such a racket. It's not even tacit that there are two completely separate issues that certificates and encryption solve. They get conflated and non technical users rightly get confused about which thing is trying to solve a problem they aren't sure why they have. The certificate authorities are quite in love that the self-signed certificate errors are turning redder, bolder, and big…

> A self signed certificate warning means "Warning! The admin on the site you're connecting to wants this conversation to be private but it hasn't been proven that he has 200 bucks for us to say he's cool" no. It means "even though this connection is encrypted, there is no way to tell you whether you are currently talking to that site or to NSA which is forwarding all of your traffic to the site you're on". Treating…

The use case for the CA system is to prevent conventional criminal activity -- not state-level spying or lawful intercept. The $200 is just a paper trail that links the website to either a purchase transaction or some sort of communication detail.

The self-signed cert risk has nothing to do with the NSA... if it's your cert or a known cert, you add it to the trust store, otherwise, you don't.

Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web

#109

Post by teamhappy »

I couldn't be happier about the news, the EFF and Mozilla always had a special place in my heart. However, the fact that we have to wait for our free certificates until the accompanying command line tool is ready for prime time seems unnecessary. Another thing I'm interested in is whether they provide advanced features like wildcard certificates. This is usually the kind of thing CA's charge somewhat significant amounts of money for.

Re: Launching in 2015: A Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web

#110

Post by iancarroll »

diafygi wrote: post #84
joshmoz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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....

I don't know why AOL keeps being brought up, but it's highly unlikely they would do this. For one, it's probably used internally for smart cards/SMIME. Secondly, it'd be very hard to get AOL to spend money on doing something for free. Moving a CA to a different company is no small feat, operationally...
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