271–280 of 318 posts
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Which is still waaaay better if they ran HTTP.
I don't agree. False pretense of security can be worse than visible insecurity.
This applies to HTTP as well. That's why Firefox and Chrome will be visibly warning it's insecure.
There where an interesting article recently on HN about this; "Please consider the impacts of banning HTTP" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9406876
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StartSSL is far from simple to use.
It's hardly rocket surgery though. Anyone incapable of following the steps required there is probably not who you'd want implementing your web server security…
In the best case, this will make website owners value HTTPS as a marketing decision (rather than a boring non-mandatory privacy decision, because let's be honest, what business really cares about its users' privacy as much as it cares about marketing goals?). Much like how Apple helped making Flash irrelevant (at the cost of impacting their users' experience just like Mozilla does now).
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Well, in this case: 1. The technical solution is trivial. You always have encryption, but http=self-signed cert, and no authentication, and no lock icon. https=CA cert, encryption, authentication, and lock icon. 2. There are strong government and corporate interests in being able to filter the open web. This closes the open web. 3. For the first time in my life, I have a comment on Hacker News or Reddit at -4. I've p…
I fully agree with #1, but how do you go from a currently-imperfect solution (which could be improved over the years, moving towards a self-signed cert default solution which by the way we are looking at in http/2) to "the goal is to reduce competition"? Mozilla is one of the most consumer-friendly companies in the world, and all I can see is you trying to undermine their efforts. Are there issues with the current st…
Step 2: Advertise to the community you'll be deprecating unencrypted on port 80 after 2 years time. Ideally, make patches to nginx and apache such that it's a small config change.
Step 3: Change behavior such that:
1. Port 80+old http+no encryption: Show a small warning
2. Port 80+encryption+self-signed cert: No warning. Also, unlocked padlock. "HTTP" in URL. Behavior as for current unencrypted web sites.
3. Port 443+encryption+self-signed cert: BIG SCARY WARNING.
4. Port 443+encryption+cert without identity: No padlock. HTTPS in the URL, but grey, and unlocked padlock.
5. Port 443+encryption+cert with identity: Padlock. Green. Name of organization. Indicated as trusted.
One of the problems with a push like this is that, aside from preventing open web, it also undermines the meaning of a cert. With initiatives like https://letsencrypt.org/, I a cert means I actually don't know who I'm talking to (at least in a legal sense -- I can identify the entity, and take them to court if they rob me).
To answer your question: I'm actually not too unhappy with the current state of affairs. I'd be more happy with the state of affairs I proposed above. I'm very unhappy with the state of affairs Mozilla proposes. I value an open web more than I do an arguably more secure one.
This stuff ain't rocket science. Mozilla has smart people. If it's being done a dumb way, there's a reason for it.
Please, can we stop calling it SSL? SSL means something very specific; something that people should no longer be deploying. The article notably uses the term 'Non-secure HTTP' which at this point in time means HTTPS leveraging TLS (probably at least 1.2) but leaves some room for future interpretation as newer versions or entirely different standards arise. No one is advocating for 'SSL' here, and continuing to use th…
It's not that specific. You could even negotiate a downgrade with a TLS server to use SSL. The first 3 versions of the protocol were named SSL and the later ones were named TLS but they're not really different.
I won't bore you with the details, they're well explained at http://disablessl3.com/ among other places. All major browsers have ended support for SSL, and more secure alternatives have been available for years.
It's not a high risk; attacks require scenarios that may not be common, but it remains true that there's no reason to deploy SSL today.
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It's not that specific. You could even negotiate a downgrade with a TLS server to use SSL. The first 3 versions of the protocol were named SSL and the later ones were named TLS but they're not really different.
The differences are significant when it comes to the security of the underlying protocol, and the downgrade is why it's important you refuse to support SSL entirely. SSL of any version (v2 or v3.. the v1 you refer to was never publicly in use) comes with security problems that are resolved in TLS. I won't bore you with the details, they're well explained at http://disablessl3.com/ among other places. All major browse…
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The differences are significant when it comes to the security of the underlying protocol, and the downgrade is why it's important you refuse to support SSL entirely. SSL of any version (v2 or v3.. the v1 you refer to was never publicly in use) comes with security problems that are resolved in TLS. I won't bore you with the details, they're well explained at http://disablessl3.com/ among other places. All major browse…
TLS 1.0 was also vulnerable to BEAST. I'm assuming that pointing to TLS 1.0 as the "minimum" is temporary. Over time, we will decide that the cutoff should be TLS 1.1 and we'll deprecate TLS 1.0. At that point, everything you're saying about SSL will be true of TLS 1.0. It's really just a difference in version number.
BEAST can be mitigated through ciphersuite selections and other measures. This makes it somewhat different than POODLE which is a protocol design flaw for which no reliable mitigation exists.
Suggesting folks not deploy SSLv3 is hardly a controversial statement. It's not just a difference in version number, it's a difference in protocol specification and name. When we say 'Use SSL' a well intentioned reader may follow that guidance and implement SSLv3, or worse disable support for TLS. Words mean things.