2 ms·

> Regarding your first point: no, they can't. See what happens if they try to exploit the DNS to get a Google certificate. (Notice the last several years of Goo

by zeveb 10y ago

> Regarding your first point: no, they can't. See what happens if they try to exploit the DNS to get a Google certificate. (Notice the last several years of Google punishing CAs). If the U.S. government, or the Russian government, or the Luxembourgian government orders a CA subject to it to produce a certificate for a given key and hostname, it will be given a certificate for that key and hostname. If the U.S. government, or the Russian government, or the Luxembourgian government orders a DNS provider subject to it to resolve all requests for a domain to a different IP than it would have otherwise, those requests will be so resolved. If the U.S. government, or the Russian government, or the Luxembourgian government orders a network subject to it to route all traffic for one IP to a different IP it controls, that traffic will be so routed. > It is very important to DNSSEC advocates to convince people that our security can't be any better than the security of the .COM zone, which is controlled by the US Government through Verisign. But nobody accepts that level of security today. Everybody accepts that level of security today, because that's the level of security we have today. Actually, it's better than the level of security we have today, because at least a DNS-level CA system would mean that no-one other than someone who can compel .com can take over a .com hostname. Right now any government in the world can do so, at the drop of a hat. Restricting that to the government a company or person is subject to greatly reduces the attack surface.

tptacek 10y ago
If the US government orders a CA to mint a bogus certificate for Google Mail, they will get the certificate, and then the CA will get put out of business, one way or the other. There are consequences to suborning the TLS CA system. DNSSEC advocates pretend there aren't, because they have to, or their arguments become untenable, because there cannot plausibly be similar consequences for suborning the DNS: we know for a fact, with repeated existence proofs, that governments will manipulate the DNS (like DOJ did with file sharing sites), and we know .COM isn't going anywhere. DNSSEC advocates will grudgingly acknowledge one half of the modern CA system security model: key continuity (pinning). What they seem unable to acknowledge is the other half. To use Moxie Marlinspike's terminology, which he coined in an argument against DNSSEC: trust agility.
- rocqua 10y ago
  > If the US government orders a CA to mint a bogus certificate for Google Mail, they will get the certificate, and then the CA will get put out of business, one way or the other. Probably, but in the year (or more considering that startSSL is still trusted) until the CA's trust is removed, that certificate still works. Besides, if you accept that governments manipulate DNS, why do you deny they manipulate DNS to get domain validated certificates? Cause if not, we are back at trusting verisign for all websites that aren't statically pinned. (with that added 'bonus' that those statically pinned sites can be wrecked by their pin at any time)
- noinsight 10y ago
  > we know for a fact, with repeated existence proofs, that governments will manipulate the DNS (like DOJ did with file sharing sites), and we know .COM isn't going anywhere. Yeah, like I've posted before, this is actually US gov SOP. The US government asserts super-jurisdiction over .COM/.NET/.ORG and will seize such domains at will [1] [2] [3], which should make every non-American think twice about using those TLD's for anything. Your only recourse will be the American justice system that you will have to navigate as a foreigner. Meanwhile, ccTLD's are under the jurisdiction of their respective countries. Of course, the US is still ultimately in control of the root zone, but I consider messing with that the nuclear option after which the US will surely have to hand it over to the UN as has been discussed at times. [1] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/03/06/1720230/us-asserts-super-jurisdiction-over-dot-com-dot-net-and-dot-org-domains https://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/03/06/1720230/us-asserts-s... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name#Seizures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name#Seizures [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_In_Our_Sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_In_Our_Sites

by zeveb 10y ago

tptacek 10y ago

If the US government orders a CA to mint a bogus certificate for Google Mail, they will get the certificate, and then the CA will get put out of business, one way or the other. There are consequences to suborning the TLS CA system. DNSSEC advocates pretend there aren't, because they have to, or their arguments become untenable, because there cannot plausibly be similar consequences for suborning the DNS: we know for a fact, with repeated existence proofs, that governments will manipulate the DNS (like DOJ did with file sharing sites), and we know .COM isn't going anywhere. DNSSEC advocates will grudgingly acknowledge one half of the modern CA system security model: key continuity (pinning). What they seem unable to acknowledge is the other half. To use Moxie Marlinspike's terminology, which he coined in an argument against DNSSEC: trust agility.

rocqua 10y ago
> If the US government orders a CA to mint a bogus certificate for Google Mail, they will get the certificate, and then the CA will get put out of business, one way or the other. Probably, but in the year (or more considering that startSSL is still trusted) until the CA's trust is removed, that certificate still works. Besides, if you accept that governments manipulate DNS, why do you deny they manipulate DNS to get domain validated certificates? Cause if not, we are back at trusting verisign for all websites that aren't statically pinned. (with that added 'bonus' that those statically pinned sites can be wrecked by their pin at any time)
noinsight 10y ago
> we know for a fact, with repeated existence proofs, that governments will manipulate the DNS (like DOJ did with file sharing sites), and we know .COM isn't going anywhere. Yeah, like I've posted before, this is actually US gov SOP. The US government asserts super-jurisdiction over .COM/.NET/.ORG and will seize such domains at will [1] [2] [3], which should make every non-American think twice about using those TLD's for anything. Your only recourse will be the American justice system that you will have to navigate as a foreigner. Meanwhile, ccTLD's are under the jurisdiction of their respective countries. Of course, the US is still ultimately in control of the root zone, but I consider messing with that the nuclear option after which the US will surely have to hand it over to the UN as has been discussed at times. [1] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/03/06/1720230/us-asserts-super-jurisdiction-over-dot-com-dot-net-and-dot-org-domains https://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/03/06/1720230/us-asserts-s... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name#Seizures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name#Seizures [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_In_Our_Sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_In_Our_Sites