4 ms·

I don't get why its not just indicating that the connection is "Encrypted". Even my mother, that has no deal whatsoever with this kind of stuff, would understan

I don't get why its not just indicating that the connection is "Encrypted". Even my mother, that has no deal whatsoever with this kind of stuff, would understand what that means.

bandrami 9y ago
Because then people would realize that they've spent years paying certificate authorities for essentially no reason, since a self-signed certificate encrypts just as well, and for 90% or so of HTTPS traffic it doesn't really matter if the host is authentic (as in, I don't particularly trust news.ycombinator.com more than I trust somebody impersonating them).
- Ajedi32 9y ago
  Encryption without domain validation is pretty much useless. Your ISP/Government/WiFi Hotspot Operator/Friendly Neighborhood ARP Spoofer is just as capable of issuing themselves a valid self-signed cert for google.com as Google themselves are. If you don't know who you're talking to, whether the connection to that entity is "private" or not is kinda a moot point.
  - bandrami 9y ago
    Only if you have some sort of trust in the putative other party. I don't trust news.ycombinator.com more than I trust some rando pretending to be news.ycombinator.com, so domain validation here is pointless for me. It's nice to know that, whatever entity I'm communicating with, the message was not altered or inspected in transit.
    - Ajedi32 9y ago
      > I don't trust news.ycombinator.com more than I trust some rando pretending to be news.ycombinator.com, so domain validation here is pointless for me. Okay, so if you try to connect to news.ycombinator.com and instead get connected to a random MITM attacker who then connects to the real news.ycombinator.com and proxies your traffic, you're fine with that? > It's nice to know that, whatever entity I'm communicating with, the message was not altered or inspected in transit. So just so long as another MITM attacker can't inspect or alter your messages to the first MITM attacker you're fine? I'm having trouble following your logic here. Again, without some way to validate that the certificate you're using is controlled by the website you intended to connect to, you might as well not be using TLS at all; it's completely pointless.
      - bandrami 9y ago
        Okay, so if you try to connect to news.ycombinator.com and instead get connected to a random MITM attacker who then connects to the real news.ycombinator.com and proxies your traffic, you're fine with that? Right. Why would I trust ycombinator.com more than the MITMer? I have zero actual experience with YC, so any information I give them is by definition information I would give to an untrusted party.
        Ajedi32 9y ago
        > any information I give them is by definition information I would give to an untrusted party Including your password to the real news.ycombinator.com?

I don't get why its not just indicating that the connection is "Encrypted". Even my mother, that has no deal whatsoever with this kind of stuff, would understand what that means.

bandrami 9y ago

Because then people would realize that they've spent years paying certificate authorities for essentially no reason, since a self-signed certificate encrypts just as well, and for 90% or so of HTTPS traffic it doesn't really matter if the host is authentic (as in, I don't particularly trust news.ycombinator.com more than I trust somebody impersonating them).

Ajedi32 9y ago
Encryption without domain validation is pretty much useless. Your ISP/Government/WiFi Hotspot Operator/Friendly Neighborhood ARP Spoofer is just as capable of issuing themselves a valid self-signed cert for google.com as Google themselves are. If you don't know who you're talking to, whether the connection to that entity is "private" or not is kinda a moot point.
- bandrami 9y ago
  Only if you have some sort of trust in the putative other party. I don't trust news.ycombinator.com more than I trust some rando pretending to be news.ycombinator.com, so domain validation here is pointless for me. It's nice to know that, whatever entity I'm communicating with, the message was not altered or inspected in transit.
  - Ajedi32 9y ago
    > I don't trust news.ycombinator.com more than I trust some rando pretending to be news.ycombinator.com, so domain validation here is pointless for me. Okay, so if you try to connect to news.ycombinator.com and instead get connected to a random MITM attacker who then connects to the real news.ycombinator.com and proxies your traffic, you're fine with that? > It's nice to know that, whatever entity I'm communicating with, the message was not altered or inspected in transit. So just so long as another MITM attacker can't inspect or alter your messages to the first MITM attacker you're fine? I'm having trouble following your logic here. Again, without some way to validate that the certificate you're using is controlled by the website you intended to connect to, you might as well not be using TLS at all; it's completely pointless.
    - bandrami 9y ago
      Okay, so if you try to connect to news.ycombinator.com and instead get connected to a random MITM attacker who then connects to the real news.ycombinator.com and proxies your traffic, you're fine with that? Right. Why would I trust ycombinator.com more than the MITMer? I have zero actual experience with YC, so any information I give them is by definition information I would give to an untrusted party.
      - Ajedi32 9y ago
        > any information I give them is by definition information I would give to an untrusted party Including your password to the real news.ycombinator.com?