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> Those new CAs DANE deployed? They are controlled overwhelmingly by world governments. As opposed to all the other CAs, which are also controlled by governmen

by zeveb 10y ago

> Those new CAs DANE deployed? They are controlled overwhelmingly by world governments. As opposed to all the other CAs, which are also controlled by governments. Every CA has some person or group of people who are able to cause certificates to be issued, and that person or people can be compelled to produce certificates at the whim of their government. > CA certificates themselves are hurtling towards "free", especially now that we have Let's Encrypt Not that Let's Encrypt's security model is … to trust unsecured DNS. So it's strictly worse than DNSSEC. > * Major browsers are implementing HPKP and static key pinning, so that once you see a certificate for a pinned domain, your browser remembers and screams bloody murder if it changes unexpectedly. Someone who attempts to get a domain-validated certificate to hijack Google Mail will, in the best case, succeed only in getting the CA dumb enough to do that kicked out of the Chrome and Firefox root trust store. I think pinning is orthogonal to DNSSEC: one might implement both DNSSEC and it. > * Google and others are coordinating efforts to monitor certificate issuance, not just using certificate pins but also with initiatives like Certificate Transparency, which involves cooperation from CAs that Google has repeatedly shown willingness to require as a condition of being included in their trust store. One might, of course, do the same thing with DNSSEC, and then come to understand which nation-states actually do break DNS and which refrain from doing so, rather than spreading FUD about them.

tptacek 10y ago
I'm sorry, I'm a little lost at "the solution to governments having captured individual CAs is to add a set of new CAs that they control directly and that can't be revoked because they're tied to the DNS".
- zeveb 10y ago
  > I'm sorry, I'm a little lost at "the solution to governments having captured individual CAs is to add a set of new CAs that they control directly and that can't be revoked because they're tied to the DNS". That's because it's not a solution. There isn't a non-political solution. By making it explicit rather than implicit one is forced to confront the truth, and be honest about it. .com is owned by the United States; .ru is owned by Russia; .ly is owned by Libya; .io is owned by the United Kingdom. If we got rid of non-DNS CAs (for host-verification purposes, anyway), it would, however, mean that only the U.S. may legally suborn .com, .org &c.; that only Russia may suborn *.ru, and so forth. That's a pretty big win over the present situation, in which every government who can lay its hands on a CA employee can get a certificate for any site in the world.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    People keep saying this in response to ".COM is owned by the USG no matter what" and it's not true. The USG's ownership of .COM does not in fact enable them to intercept Google Mail requests. The reason it doesn't is that if you get a CA to issue a bogus Google Mail request for surveillance purposes, Google will put your CA out of business. Chrome has mid-high double digit market share. No matter what the DNS hierarchy says, and no matter what some random CA says, Chrome ships knowing what a valid certificate for Google Mail looks like. When you try to tell Chrome something is a Google property that isn't, Google finds out, and they take action. It used to be they only did this for non-Google properties if you asked them nicely. But now there's a protocol that automates it, called HPKP. HPKP does not give a fuck what government is currently in power in Libya. If a CA starts issuing bogus .LY certs, that CA probably isn't going to be issuing certificates for .LY --- or many anything else --- for much longer. This helps everybody, not just the people running Chrome. IE doesn't support HPKP. But every single person running Chrome is participating in a certificate surveillance system that will light up if someone makes the mistake of feeding them a bogus cert. Google is also getting the ball rolling on Certificate Transparency, which directly monitors all certificate issuances from participating CAs. Browser vendors have shown a willingness to force CAs to participate if they make any mistakes at all. This is a problem that is in the process of being solved. DNSSEC is a MONUMENTAL STEP BACKWARDS. Thankfully, it isn't going to happen, but we can make that not-happening even clearer and faster by noticing when people talk positively about DNSSEC and then challenging them.
    - garaetjjte 10y ago
      Deploying DANA doesn't mean that we can't use HPKP. It is independent solution. > Chrome has mid-high double digit market share. No matter what the DNS hierarchy says, and no matter what some random CA says, Chrome ships knowing what a valid certificate for Google Mail looks like. When you try to tell Chrome something is a Google property that isn't, Google finds out, and they take action. And this situation won't change with DANA. > HPKP does not give a fuck what government is currently in power in Libya. If a CA starts issuing bogus .LY certs, that CA probably isn't going to be issuing certificates for .LY --- or many anything else --- for much longer. If they control DNS for domain, they can change MX records for verification and buy certificate in any legitimate CA.

by zeveb 10y ago

tptacek 10y ago

I'm sorry, I'm a little lost at "the solution to governments having captured individual CAs is to add a set of new CAs that they control directly and that can't be revoked because they're tied to the DNS".

zeveb 10y ago
> I'm sorry, I'm a little lost at "the solution to governments having captured individual CAs is to add a set of new CAs that they control directly and that can't be revoked because they're tied to the DNS". That's because it's not a solution. There isn't a non-political solution. By making it explicit rather than implicit one is forced to confront the truth, and be honest about it. .com is owned by the United States; .ru is owned by Russia; .ly is owned by Libya; .io is owned by the United Kingdom. If we got rid of non-DNS CAs (for host-verification purposes, anyway), it would, however, mean that only the U.S. may legally suborn .com, .org &c.; that only Russia may suborn *.ru, and so forth. That's a pretty big win over the present situation, in which every government who can lay its hands on a CA employee can get a certificate for any site in the world.
- tptacek 10y ago
  People keep saying this in response to ".COM is owned by the USG no matter what" and it's not true. The USG's ownership of .COM does not in fact enable them to intercept Google Mail requests. The reason it doesn't is that if you get a CA to issue a bogus Google Mail request for surveillance purposes, Google will put your CA out of business. Chrome has mid-high double digit market share. No matter what the DNS hierarchy says, and no matter what some random CA says, Chrome ships knowing what a valid certificate for Google Mail looks like. When you try to tell Chrome something is a Google property that isn't, Google finds out, and they take action. It used to be they only did this for non-Google properties if you asked them nicely. But now there's a protocol that automates it, called HPKP. HPKP does not give a fuck what government is currently in power in Libya. If a CA starts issuing bogus .LY certs, that CA probably isn't going to be issuing certificates for .LY --- or many anything else --- for much longer. This helps everybody, not just the people running Chrome. IE doesn't support HPKP. But every single person running Chrome is participating in a certificate surveillance system that will light up if someone makes the mistake of feeding them a bogus cert. Google is also getting the ball rolling on Certificate Transparency, which directly monitors all certificate issuances from participating CAs. Browser vendors have shown a willingness to force CAs to participate if they make any mistakes at all. This is a problem that is in the process of being solved. DNSSEC is a MONUMENTAL STEP BACKWARDS. Thankfully, it isn't going to happen, but we can make that not-happening even clearer and faster by noticing when people talk positively about DNSSEC and then challenging them.
  - garaetjjte 10y ago
    Deploying DANA doesn't mean that we can't use HPKP. It is independent solution. > Chrome has mid-high double digit market share. No matter what the DNS hierarchy says, and no matter what some random CA says, Chrome ships knowing what a valid certificate for Google Mail looks like. When you try to tell Chrome something is a Google property that isn't, Google finds out, and they take action. And this situation won't change with DANA. > HPKP does not give a fuck what government is currently in power in Libya. If a CA starts issuing bogus .LY certs, that CA probably isn't going to be issuing certificates for .LY --- or many anything else --- for much longer. If they control DNS for domain, they can change MX records for verification and buy certificate in any legitimate CA.