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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

#301

Post by dragonwriter »

IgorPartola wrote: post #282
rufb wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is where we stand: Encrypted (Certified) COOL GREEN Encrypted (Self-Signed) EVIL RED Unencrypted NOTHING / NEUTRAL CHROME I think there's a pretty blatant antipattern here, and I'm not talking about colourblind-proofing the browser chrome.

> Encrypted (Certified) COOL GREEN I think we can agree that this case is correct. If you have a properly vetted cert, more power to you. The browser should tell your users that you do own this domain. > Encrypted (Self-Signed) EVIL RED Not quite. Your user does have the ability to permanently trust this certificate. However, if I am trying to access gmail.com over HTTPS, I better not get this error. Otherwise, I kno…

> This case should be eliminated. We need to stop publishing stuff over HTTP. Period.

HTTP is perfectly fine for information originating on and never leaving controlled, trusted, internal networks, and there is no reason to pay the overhead for HTTPS for those cases.

There's other use cases where its probably not worth the (small) overhead for HTTPS.

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

#302

Post by dragonwriter »

chetanahuja wrote: post #258
riffraff wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but as user I can understand that an http site is insecure, while a self signed certificate might lead me into a false sense of security.

That's the proffered reasoning as we all know. But the actual outcome (to quote rufb from this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8625739 ) Encrypted (Certified) COOL GREEN Encrypted (Self-Signed) EVIL RED Unencrypted NOTHING / NEUTRAL CHROME Tell me how the logic works here (for an average user).

> Tell me how the logic works here (for an average user).

"Neutral Chrome" is the default state of the web -- the site doesn't assert that it should be trusted, and it shouldn't be, and that's the default state people should have in approaching the web.

"Cool Green" is "the site asserts that it has a particular identity and that communication with that identified site is private, and it passes the tests built into the browser's security model to verify all that."

"Evil Red" is "the site asserts that it has a particular identity and that communication with that identified site is private, but it fails the tests built into the browser's security model to verify all that."

Seems to me to be perfectly logical, even if we might prefer a better security model for making and verifying the claims at issue.

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

#303

Post by eksith »

IgorPartola wrote: post #282
rufb wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is where we stand: Encrypted (Certified) COOL GREEN Encrypted (Self-Signed) EVIL RED Unencrypted NOTHING / NEUTRAL CHROME I think there's a pretty blatant antipattern here, and I'm not talking about colourblind-proofing the browser chrome.

> Encrypted (Certified) COOL GREEN I think we can agree that this case is correct. If you have a properly vetted cert, more power to you. The browser should tell your users that you do own this domain. > Encrypted (Self-Signed) EVIL RED Not quite. Your user does have the ability to permanently trust this certificate. However, if I am trying to access gmail.com over HTTPS, I better not get this error. Otherwise, I kno…

The registrar issuing cert solution would certainly speed up HTTPS adoption; you're dealing with one less org to secure your site. The down-side is that if you decide to move registrars, that still complicates things. What if the new registrar refuses to issue a new cert without a hefty fee? Or what about revoking the previous cert? Now the registrar is functioning as a de facto CA so it doesn't completely eliminate the middle-man factor.

I'm hoping the EFF project will smooth over these hiccups, which is why I'm looking forward to it.

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

#304

Post by IgorPartola »

Xeoncross wrote: post #297
IgorPartola wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Encrypted (Certified) COOL GREEN I think we can agree that this case is correct. If you have a properly vetted cert, more power to you. The browser should tell your users that you do own this domain. > Encrypted (Self-Signed) EVIL RED Not quite. Your user does have the ability to permanently trust this certificate. However, if I am trying to access gmail.com over HTTPS, I better not get this error. Otherwise, I kno…

I'm not sure you should completely cut off anyone else but your registrar from holding the power to grant you certs. As long as you can transfer the domain out I guess it's not too bad.

What does it matter who issues your cert if your registrar controls your domain name? They can transfer your domain name to the FBI, your competitor, your ex-husband, whoever. They can keep it for themselves, and they can publish their own DNS servers as authoritative, making all traffic flow through them anyways. They already are in 100% control of your domain and you are at their mercy. You already trust them enough to buy the domain from them. Why would you want to give a third party that same level of access when you don't have to? The CA's would have you believe that they have tighter security than anyone else, so you should trust them. That's silly. Your registrar has more control over your domain than your CA, so either their security has to be just as good, or you are screwed anyways.

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

#305

Post by xorcist »

Someone1234 wrote: post #42
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…

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…

That's the standard motivation for CAs, but I don't buy it.

Most of the time, I'm much more interested in a domain identity than a corporate identity. If I go to bigbank.com, and is presented with a certificate, I want to know if I am talking to bigbank.com -- not that I'm talking to "Big Bank Co." (or at least one of the legal entities around the world under that name).

Therefore it would make much more sense if your TLD made a cryptographic assertment that you are the legal owner of a domain and that this information could be utilized up the whole protocol stack.

That would not have a legitimate cost, apart from the domain name system itself.

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

#306

Post by iancarroll »

SilasX wrote: post #289
iancarroll wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not entirely sure I understand your point, so if I misunderstood you please correct me. First, TLS has three principles that, if you lose one, it becomes essentially uselsss: 1) Authentication - you're talking to the right server 2) Encryption - nobody saw what was sent 3) Verification - nothing was modified in transit Without authentication, you essentially are not protected against anything. Any router, any gov…

Encryption without verification is not useless; it protects against snooping.

If you don't verify what is sent, I could easily send you a malicious web form. If you don't verify the key or cert behind the connection, anyone can claim to be x site.

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

#307

Post by melvinmt »

rufb wrote: post #247
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…

So this is where we stand: Encrypted (Certified) COOL GREEN Encrypted (Self-Signed) EVIL RED Unencrypted NOTHING / NEUTRAL CHROME I think there's a pretty blatant antipattern here, and I'm not talking about colourblind-proofing the browser chrome.

It's actually more like this:

    Encrypted (Certified)    EVERYTHING'S FINE
    Encrypted (Self-Signed)  OMG!!!
    Unencrypted              EVERYTHING'S FINE (while it's not)

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

#308

Post by xorcist »

kybernetikos wrote: post #257
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…

There's no question in my mind that the whole thing is a racket and militates against security (you generally don't even know all the evil organisations that your browser implicitly trusts - and all the organisations that they trust etc). There are certainly other options too: here's my suggestion- The first time you go to a site where the certificate is one you haven't seen before, the browser should show a nice fri…

How would you rotate keys with that scheme?

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

#309

Post by JetSpiegel »

icebraining wrote: post #277
danielweber wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but on many small networks, you aren't addressing the embedded device by a FQDN. All these appliances should let you change the cert on them, but you still need that initial connection, and at smaller organizations (or households) the certs will never ever be changed. I used to work on embedded security projects so I care about this; I also realize that's a small portion of the market. I'm okay with making the…

True, but on many small networks, you aren't addressing the embedded device by a FQDN. Why not?

Why should my fridge have a FQD name? What purpose does that serve?

Why install a firewall in each device if you can install one on the router that works for everything?

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

#310

Post by SXX »

lazyjones wrote: post #92
iancarroll wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They can get US corporations (including many CAs) to cooperate. For example, to obtain a fake (but perfectly working google.com certificate, they can ask Google (more or less) nicely to provide one, or they can go ask any CA instead. It's not likely that compromise is required with so many potential sources, some of which may be paid or coerced to cooperate. PS. nice (presumably political) downvote further up ...

Fake certificate for Google wouldn't work in Chrome at least. There is certificate pinning already.
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