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That philosophy is perplexing because system admins already have to manually handle things like software upgrades. Unlike SSL renewals, upgrades usually occur

That philosophy is perplexing because system admins already have to manually handle things like software upgrades. Unlike SSL renewals, upgrades usually occur to an arbitrary frequency yet admins seem to be able to cope. I'd also contend that 90 day expiry makes end-users less sensitive to certificate change notifications; at present if a website renews its cert after a year I receive a pop-up and I pay attention. Receiving one every 60 days will just condition people to start ignoring cert changes, whether valid or not.

JonathonW 11y ago
There's a browser that gives certificate change notifications by default?
mynewtb 11y ago
Maybe the message could be hidden if the new cert was signed by the old one?
konklone 11y ago
Users should be able to safely ignore certificate changes. No one should need to install Certificate Patrol to have a safe experience. Of course, if the certificate changes to an untrusted one, the browser should flag it -- and if the server specifies HSTS, then the browser should block the user from clicking through anyway (increasing the pressure to make sure the cert is always trusted and unexpired).
nsgi 11y ago
How do you decide whether the new certificate is genuine, other than it being issued by a valid CA?
mjevans 11y ago
The end users should ideally not be prompted when they see a certificate renewed by the same CA. It should also ideally be a /renewal/ of the old one, and not an entirely new private key generated each time as well. Of course everything could be tuneable. I believe these are sane defaults. * Prompt on CA change? (Default Yes) * Prompt on private key change? (Default No IF the cached certificate is on the old CA's revocation list.) * Prompt on CA renewal? (Default No)
- pilif 11y ago
  > It should also ideally be a /renewal/ of the old one, and not an entirely new private key generated each time as well sure? A new key provides quite a bit of security benefits because even when the key got loose without you noticing, three months later, it won't be usable any more when the new cert is made for a new key.
sbierwagen 11y ago
What? No browser displays a notification when a website changes its cert. It doesn't even show you a notification if it changes its key, that's the whole point of key pinning: https://wiki.mozilla.org/SecurityEngineering/Public_Key_Pinning https://wiki.mozilla.org/SecurityEngineering/Public_Key_Pinn... (A pin failure results in a non-bypassable HTTPS error: https://projects.dm.id.lv/Public-Key-Pins_test https://projects.dm.id.lv/Public-Key-Pins_test )
- TheDong 11y ago
  The most popular way to get that is: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/certificate-patrol/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/certificate-p... I personally no longer use it because of all the noise, even before lets encrypt.

JonathonW 11y ago

There's a browser that gives certificate change notifications by default?

mynewtb 11y ago

Maybe the message could be hidden if the new cert was signed by the old one?

konklone 11y ago

Users should be able to safely ignore certificate changes. No one should need to install Certificate Patrol to have a safe experience. Of course, if the certificate changes to an untrusted one, the browser should flag it -- and if the server specifies HSTS, then the browser should block the user from clicking through anyway (increasing the pressure to make sure the cert is always trusted and unexpired).

nsgi 11y ago

How do you decide whether the new certificate is genuine, other than it being issued by a valid CA?

mjevans 11y ago

The end users should ideally not be prompted when they see a certificate renewed by the same CA. It should also ideally be a /renewal/ of the old one, and not an entirely new private key generated each time as well. Of course everything could be tuneable. I believe these are sane defaults. * Prompt on CA change? (Default Yes) * Prompt on private key change? (Default No IF the cached certificate is on the old CA's revocation list.) * Prompt on CA renewal? (Default No)

pilif 11y ago
> It should also ideally be a /renewal/ of the old one, and not an entirely new private key generated each time as well sure? A new key provides quite a bit of security benefits because even when the key got loose without you noticing, three months later, it won't be usable any more when the new cert is made for a new key.

sbierwagen 11y ago

What? No browser displays a notification when a website changes its cert. It doesn't even show you a notification if it changes its key, that's the whole point of key pinning: https://wiki.mozilla.org/SecurityEngineering/Public_Key_Pinning https://wiki.mozilla.org/SecurityEngineering/Public_Key_Pinn... (A pin failure results in a non-bypassable HTTPS error: https://projects.dm.id.lv/Public-Key-Pins_test https://projects.dm.id.lv/Public-Key-Pins_test )

TheDong 11y ago
The most popular way to get that is: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/certificate-patrol/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/certificate-p... I personally no longer use it because of all the noise, even before lets encrypt.