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> another auto generated certificate The client can detect changing to a new certificate. Obviously self signed certificates have problems. The main point is t

by pdkl95 9y ago

> another auto generated certificate The client can detect changing to a new certificate. Obviously self signed certificates have problems. The main point is that it does protect against some attacks, and raises the complexity/cost. Running a MITM takes a lot more time, effort, and resources compared to simple deep packet inspection on plaintext packets. > Without the verification by public CAs While there isn't much support in current client software, verification doesn't have to be from a CA. In an ideal world, your bank (or whomever) could hand out some sort of dongle (or maybe as a QR (or similar) code on a card?) that had a certificate that could be used for direct verification of their internet services independent of any CA, or in combination with CA verification.

solatic 9y ago
> The client can detect changing to a new certificate Not if the client has never visited the site before and doesn't have a known-good self-signed certificate pinned locally to check against. And if the client did have such a certificate pinned, revocation by the legitimate owner of the self-signed certificate becomes impossible, since the client won't trust the new self-signed certificate being presented to it, without out-of-band communication of said intent to revoke and manual intervention on the client side. > dongle Again, the problem is certificate revocation. Physical dongles cannot easily be revoked. Corporate intranets deal with catastrophic compromise of their internal CA certificates by re-imaging all corporate machines with new certificates and restoring from off-site backups where needed - prescribing that for customer machines is impossible. PKI is like monitoring - it must rely on external services to be dependable and effective.
- pdkl95 9y ago
  > never visited the site before I already said that self signed certs are not going to solve every problem. They solve some problems, which is better plaintext HTTP that we should have retired over a decade ago. Obviously you should validate the server - probably through the usual PKI methods - whenever possible. > revocation Revocation would happen in the usual manner. The dongle is just a minor example of another way to provide validation. Obviously each methods will have their own benefits and limitations. I'm not saying we should replace PKI with physical dongles; I'm suggesting that alternative (non-PKI) methods are possible and they can not only coexist, they can also corroborate each other.

by pdkl95 9y ago

solatic 9y ago

> The client can detect changing to a new certificate Not if the client has never visited the site before and doesn't have a known-good self-signed certificate pinned locally to check against. And if the client did have such a certificate pinned, revocation by the legitimate owner of the self-signed certificate becomes impossible, since the client won't trust the new self-signed certificate being presented to it, without out-of-band communication of said intent to revoke and manual intervention on the client side. > dongle Again, the problem is certificate revocation. Physical dongles cannot easily be revoked. Corporate intranets deal with catastrophic compromise of their internal CA certificates by re-imaging all corporate machines with new certificates and restoring from off-site backups where needed - prescribing that for customer machines is impossible. PKI is like monitoring - it must rely on external services to be dependable and effective.

pdkl95 9y ago
> never visited the site before I already said that self signed certs are not going to solve every problem. They solve some problems, which is better plaintext HTTP that we should have retired over a decade ago. Obviously you should validate the server - probably through the usual PKI methods - whenever possible. > revocation Revocation would happen in the usual manner. The dongle is just a minor example of another way to provide validation. Obviously each methods will have their own benefits and limitations. I'm not saying we should replace PKI with physical dongles; I'm suggesting that alternative (non-PKI) methods are possible and they can not only coexist, they can also corroborate each other.