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They wouldn't "routinely" abuse their root to monitor large populations. That would be too obvious and result in near-immediate loss of their precious root. Wh
by kijin 9y ago
They wouldn't "routinely" abuse their root to monitor large populations. That would be too obvious and result in near-immediate loss of their precious root.
What's more dangerous, and much more likely, is that they might use forged certificates against specific individuals for a short period of time, for example, to intercept login credentials. The attack will go unnoticed as long as they also block the corresponding HPKP reporting URL (if the targeted site uses HPKP at all).
- schoen 9y agoI think this distinction is a good one, and I'll try to be more attentive to it when writing about this in the future. Hopefully the risk for the attacker from the two kinds of attack are gradually converging, due to pinning and especially Certificate Transparency.
- manquer 9y agorevoking the root outside china will have no bearing within. All devices sold and used in china could be forced to include that root. There is not a lot a user could do , especially in mobile if you have locked phone and only access to the official app store
- kijin 9y agoThere's a fine line between cartoon-villain evil, exemplified by people like Kim Jong Un who just doesn't seem to give a fuck, and just-enough-to-achieve-your-objectives-but-not-enough-to-make-too-many-people-notice evil, which is what China is aiming at. Lots of people travel in and out of China with all sorts of computing devices. China does care about the reputation of their root and of their highly profitable electronic exports.