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There are legitimate reasons to need to snoop on all traffic in an enterprise. Some orgs are required by law to snoop on all traffic. For example, in the USA or

There are legitimate reasons to need to snoop on all traffic in an enterprise. Some orgs are required by law to snoop on all traffic. For example, in the USA orgs regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for financial transactions need to track communications related to their employees' work. It's not as simple as snooping == bad.

MichaelGG 9y ago
You can still track employees' e.g. web traffic by installing a CA and proxying their connections. That is what is done today and PFS does not change it.
- martinald 9y ago
  Not if the website uses CA pinning though?
  - detaro 9y ago
    Additionally installed CA certificates override key pinning, for exactly this use case (at least in the major browsers, it's possible some niche ones don't do this)
    - cesarb 9y ago
      The right question would be "Not if the website uses client certificates though?". As far as I know, TLS connections using client certificates can't be proxied, since the MITM proxy would need to have the client certificate's private key.
- AndyMcConachie 9y ago
  People bring their own devices to work these days. And look, this is not something that I fundamentally agree with or anything. I just want to make sure we understand the arguments of both sides.
  - jjawssd 9y ago
    Corporate CA certs still work with BYOD. As of Android 4.0 user trusted certificates can be managed on the Android device in the Settings -> Security -> Certificates -> 'User'-section. Additionally, when using user trusted certificates, Android will force the user of the Android device to implement additional safety measures: the use of a PIN-code, a pattern-lock or a password to unlock the device are mandatory when user-supplied certificates are used. I am sure iOS has a similar method.
  - bcoates 9y ago
    If people can BYOD they can bring an LTE connection with it. At that point you should probably stop pretending that monitoring is going to be feasible.
  - MichaelGG 9y ago
    BYOD doesn't affect this. If you're on your own device and you connect to Google.com via the company's network, PFS or not, the workplace can't intercept. You'll either get blocked (not using their proxy), or get a CA error (their MITM system can't trick your phone into thinking their self-issued cert is valid). This is true with or without PFS. You'll still have to install the workplace's CA, and then they'll continue to MITM you, like they do today. Or, just use your cell connection and bypass it all. It'd only change if you're connecting to sites the workplace controls and has the private keys for, that you trust (i.e., they get a cert issues by Digicert then disable PFS on their webserver). This isn't what enterprises are upset about.
- fulafel 9y ago
  And this is still quite questionable, we should not be enabling it.
pdkl95 9y ago
> required by law to snoop If regulations are fundamentally incompatible with TLS, they can make their own protocol. I'm sure the orgs that are regulated by the SEC can (collectively) afford the development time/cost.
- oneplane 9y ago
  Or they could disable security alltogether. It's not like 'weak security is better than no security'.. if anything, it just paints a large target on your back.
Godel_unicode 9y ago
If you're up on the backstory here, you'll realize that the type of snooping done in those orgs (bluecoat mitm) is still supported by the 1.3. It's just static key exchange for offline pcap decrypt that's being thwarted by the proposed forward secrecy.
user5994461 9y ago
Track communications doesn't mean that you need to decrypt and store all communications.
fulafel 9y ago
If you can't get your act together on collecting the traffic at endpoints and you feel you have to compromise e2e security, you should not ruin TLS for everyone but use another protocol.
solatic 9y ago
And the way to comply with the SEC is through client-side collection, not by MITM proxying. The minute your employees use a cell network instead of your corporate intranet, if you aren't collecting data off the phone itself, then you're no longer in compliance.

MichaelGG 9y ago

You can still track employees' e.g. web traffic by installing a CA and proxying their connections. That is what is done today and PFS does not change it.

martinald 9y ago
Not if the website uses CA pinning though?
- detaro 9y ago
  Additionally installed CA certificates override key pinning, for exactly this use case (at least in the major browsers, it's possible some niche ones don't do this)
  - cesarb 9y ago
    The right question would be "Not if the website uses client certificates though?". As far as I know, TLS connections using client certificates can't be proxied, since the MITM proxy would need to have the client certificate's private key.
AndyMcConachie 9y ago
People bring their own devices to work these days. And look, this is not something that I fundamentally agree with or anything. I just want to make sure we understand the arguments of both sides.
- jjawssd 9y ago
  Corporate CA certs still work with BYOD. As of Android 4.0 user trusted certificates can be managed on the Android device in the Settings -> Security -> Certificates -> 'User'-section. Additionally, when using user trusted certificates, Android will force the user of the Android device to implement additional safety measures: the use of a PIN-code, a pattern-lock or a password to unlock the device are mandatory when user-supplied certificates are used. I am sure iOS has a similar method.
- bcoates 9y ago
  If people can BYOD they can bring an LTE connection with it. At that point you should probably stop pretending that monitoring is going to be feasible.
- MichaelGG 9y ago
  BYOD doesn't affect this. If you're on your own device and you connect to Google.com via the company's network, PFS or not, the workplace can't intercept. You'll either get blocked (not using their proxy), or get a CA error (their MITM system can't trick your phone into thinking their self-issued cert is valid). This is true with or without PFS. You'll still have to install the workplace's CA, and then they'll continue to MITM you, like they do today. Or, just use your cell connection and bypass it all. It'd only change if you're connecting to sites the workplace controls and has the private keys for, that you trust (i.e., they get a cert issues by Digicert then disable PFS on their webserver). This isn't what enterprises are upset about.
fulafel 9y ago
And this is still quite questionable, we should not be enabling it.

pdkl95 9y ago

> required by law to snoop If regulations are fundamentally incompatible with TLS, they can make their own protocol. I'm sure the orgs that are regulated by the SEC can (collectively) afford the development time/cost.

oneplane 9y ago
Or they could disable security alltogether. It's not like 'weak security is better than no security'.. if anything, it just paints a large target on your back.

Godel_unicode 9y ago

If you're up on the backstory here, you'll realize that the type of snooping done in those orgs (bluecoat mitm) is still supported by the 1.3. It's just static key exchange for offline pcap decrypt that's being thwarted by the proposed forward secrecy.

user5994461 9y ago

Track communications doesn't mean that you need to decrypt and store all communications.

fulafel 9y ago

If you can't get your act together on collecting the traffic at endpoints and you feel you have to compromise e2e security, you should not ruin TLS for everyone but use another protocol.

solatic 9y ago

And the way to comply with the SEC is through client-side collection, not by MITM proxying. The minute your employees use a cell network instead of your corporate intranet, if you aren't collecting data off the phone itself, then you're no longer in compliance.