6 ms·

The ability for third parties to sniff your traffic is a big problem.

ams6110 9y ago
It's not a big problem if the traffic is inconsequential. If I'm passively browsing I don't really care too much. If I'm submitting forms, or working in a authenticated session, that's a different matter of course. And as easy as it is to get a certificate these days, what does it really prove? It stops 3rd party snooping, but then again so does a self-signed certificate.
- niij 9y ago
  I think you're confusing authentication vs encryption. If you were MITMing someone and using a self signed cert for example.com that connection can be encrypted (if the user clicks through the warnings) but says nothing about your trust for the site.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Let's Encrypt, or any other low-cost SSL certificate, says very little about my trust for the site either. It's just too easy to get them to think they really mean anything.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      An expensive DV certificate doesn't really say any more than a cheap one, except that the person buying it had money to burn. Whether an EV certificate should do much more for trust than DV is a matter of some debate.
    - tialaramex 9y ago
      All new certificates for DNS names in the Web PKI today (and for some time now) must result from the CA having used one of the Ten Blessed Methods to validate the Applicants control over the name, regardless of who paid how much. Let's Encrypt offered three of the Ten, but one was discovered to be flawed due to the way some major bulk hosting services are configured, so that leaves two (of Nine, since in practice any implementation of the Tenth Blessed Method is flawed the same way). Even flawed Blessed Methods are far superior to the checking (basically none) we can reasonably expect from a normal person using a web browser. But still, improvements upon the Blessed Methods are a topic of public discussion, if you think you genuinely have a better way you should definitely let the CA/B Forum or m.d.s.policy know about it.
    - niij 9y ago
      Having any valid cert (DV or otherwise) proves that you are viewing the example.com that the owner of example.com wants you to see. Without a certificate, you can/will be MITMed. >It's just too easy to get them to think they really mean anything. I'm not sure what you mean by this: 1. Are you saying that there is a vulnerability where you can get a valid certificate for a domain you don't own? 2. Do you mean the fact that valid owners of a domain can get a certificate easily? If 1, please provide more info. If 2, why is that a bad thing?
- lolsal 9y ago
  The traffic is only inconsequential until it's not. It's a privacy matter, not strictly a security matter.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
jlarocco 9y ago
That's simply not true. 99% of the time I could care less if a middle man sniffs my traffic. HTTPS is for that other 1% of the time. The hypocrisy here is amazing, too, because while pushing HTTPS, Google itself is actively following everybody around, tracking everything they do online.
- brucephillips 9y ago
  Blackmail, economic exploitation, political repercussions including imprisonment are all real consequences of surveillence.
  - jlarocco 9y ago
    I'd like to see something comparing the number of people blackmailed or exploited by sniffed HTTP traffic versus the number of people affected by back end exploits or social engineering. Everybody screams about HTTPS because it's easy to do, but it's a tiny problem in the grand scheme of things, and it gives people a misplaced sense of security.
    - dane-pgp 9y ago
      To be fair, there's not much that browser makers can do about back end exploits and social engineering. Google aren't in the business of writing back ends for third parties, and it's difficult to know if a website's back end is insecure, so I don't know who you expect to hear "scream", or who they would scream about. The article is about one practical measure that a browser maker has taken to improve the piece of user-facing software that they are responsible for, and some users of that software are applauding this improvement. Having said that, I do accept your over all point that there is a lot of other work that still needs to be done in securing the web. As you suggest, that's not going to be easy, but let's not fail to fix the things that we can fix already.
- Diederich 9y ago
  https is about two big things in my mind. The obvious one is that it makes your traffic hard or impossible to sniff. What's often overlooked is that it also makes your session highly resistant to tampering by 3rd parties. These parties include: 1. Anybody who might have access to your home WIFI network. 2. Your Internet Service Provider. There's been plenty of documented cases where ISPs have injected 'harmless' HTML. 3. Any number of bad actors if you're using any kind of public WIFI. 4. National actors. That's the NSA in the United States, where we have clear evidence that they have been capable of intercepting unsecured connections and injecting unreleased attacks into targeted computers. This is not tinfoil hat stuff. The benefit of https is undeniably greater than the cost. I'm not crazy about how Google throws their weight around in a lot of cases either. But in this case, I think they're doing the right thing.
takeda 9y ago
The real reason for Google pushing this is is due to ISPs having genius idea of start replacing ads on sites with their own. Google is not doing this without interest, but I guess it overall is beneficial for us as well...

It's not a big problem if the traffic is inconsequential. If I'm passively browsing I don't really care too much. If I'm submitting forms, or working in a authenticated session, that's a different matter of course. And as easy as it is to get a certificate these days, what does it really prove? It stops 3rd party snooping, but then again so does a self-signed certificate.

niij 9y ago
I think you're confusing authentication vs encryption. If you were MITMing someone and using a self signed cert for example.com that connection can be encrypted (if the user clicks through the warnings) but says nothing about your trust for the site.
- ams6110 9y ago
  Let's Encrypt, or any other low-cost SSL certificate, says very little about my trust for the site either. It's just too easy to get them to think they really mean anything.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    An expensive DV certificate doesn't really say any more than a cheap one, except that the person buying it had money to burn. Whether an EV certificate should do much more for trust than DV is a matter of some debate.
  - tialaramex 9y ago
    All new certificates for DNS names in the Web PKI today (and for some time now) must result from the CA having used one of the Ten Blessed Methods to validate the Applicants control over the name, regardless of who paid how much. Let's Encrypt offered three of the Ten, but one was discovered to be flawed due to the way some major bulk hosting services are configured, so that leaves two (of Nine, since in practice any implementation of the Tenth Blessed Method is flawed the same way). Even flawed Blessed Methods are far superior to the checking (basically none) we can reasonably expect from a normal person using a web browser. But still, improvements upon the Blessed Methods are a topic of public discussion, if you think you genuinely have a better way you should definitely let the CA/B Forum or m.d.s.policy know about it.
  - niij 9y ago
    Having any valid cert (DV or otherwise) proves that you are viewing the example.com that the owner of example.com wants you to see. Without a certificate, you can/will be MITMed. >It's just too easy to get them to think they really mean anything. I'm not sure what you mean by this: 1. Are you saying that there is a vulnerability where you can get a valid certificate for a domain you don't own? 2. Do you mean the fact that valid owners of a domain can get a certificate easily? If 1, please provide more info. If 2, why is that a bad thing?
lolsal 9y ago
The traffic is only inconsequential until it's not. It's a privacy matter, not strictly a security matter.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

jlarocco 9y ago

That's simply not true. 99% of the time I could care less if a middle man sniffs my traffic. HTTPS is for that other 1% of the time. The hypocrisy here is amazing, too, because while pushing HTTPS, Google itself is actively following everybody around, tracking everything they do online.

brucephillips 9y ago
Blackmail, economic exploitation, political repercussions including imprisonment are all real consequences of surveillence.
- jlarocco 9y ago
  I'd like to see something comparing the number of people blackmailed or exploited by sniffed HTTP traffic versus the number of people affected by back end exploits or social engineering. Everybody screams about HTTPS because it's easy to do, but it's a tiny problem in the grand scheme of things, and it gives people a misplaced sense of security.
  - dane-pgp 9y ago
    To be fair, there's not much that browser makers can do about back end exploits and social engineering. Google aren't in the business of writing back ends for third parties, and it's difficult to know if a website's back end is insecure, so I don't know who you expect to hear "scream", or who they would scream about. The article is about one practical measure that a browser maker has taken to improve the piece of user-facing software that they are responsible for, and some users of that software are applauding this improvement. Having said that, I do accept your over all point that there is a lot of other work that still needs to be done in securing the web. As you suggest, that's not going to be easy, but let's not fail to fix the things that we can fix already.
Diederich 9y ago
https is about two big things in my mind. The obvious one is that it makes your traffic hard or impossible to sniff. What's often overlooked is that it also makes your session highly resistant to tampering by 3rd parties. These parties include: 1. Anybody who might have access to your home WIFI network. 2. Your Internet Service Provider. There's been plenty of documented cases where ISPs have injected 'harmless' HTML. 3. Any number of bad actors if you're using any kind of public WIFI. 4. National actors. That's the NSA in the United States, where we have clear evidence that they have been capable of intercepting unsecured connections and injecting unreleased attacks into targeted computers. This is not tinfoil hat stuff. The benefit of https is undeniably greater than the cost. I'm not crazy about how Google throws their weight around in a lot of cases either. But in this case, I think they're doing the right thing.

takeda 9y ago

The real reason for Google pushing this is is due to ISPs having genius idea of start replacing ads on sites with their own. Google is not doing this without interest, but I guess it overall is beneficial for us as well...