Earlier quoted context omitted.
These guys aren't the brightest bulbs out there. You could even have it switch certificates on every reboot... or not do this in the first place. ;-)
> or not to do this in the first place. Are there other options besides installing my own root certificate? Assuming I want to write software that legitimately MITMs all HTTP and HTTPS traffic (parental control, ad blocker, anti-virus scan for webpages...). I want it to be browser independent and work with browsers that don't support extensions.
Well, it's basically impossible in some cases to MITM while showing the same certificate without re-building a browser. So your best bet would be to modify existing browsers. That said, if content modification isn't required -- and all you want to do is snoop on SSL, you can use SSLKEYLOGFILE in NSS-based browsers like Firefox and Chrome. If legitimate, I'd prefer going the extension route: people want you in their browser, so you can walk them through whatever it takes to install you, or provide pre-made profiles with you enabled. The point of encryption is to avoid spying and while most users (as evidenced here) don't actually check that the HTTPS website certificate is what it claims to be, pretending to be the same site is about all you can do to modify content and MITM. I'd also point out that the problem here isn't so much that they're MITMing as that they're doing it really, really poorly. Of course, any backdoor could be used by others -- even your SSLKEYLOGFILE. ;-)