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Wouldn't be surprised if it was related to their new Titan Security Keys. They are advertised as 2-factor authentication devices but they almost certainly have

Wouldn't be surprised if it was related to their new Titan Security Keys. They are advertised as 2-factor authentication devices but they almost certainly have the ability to act as a certificate store. If you have a CA you can start issuing certs to people and drop the password / user name login altogether.

geofft 8y ago
Google has been behind the effort to kill client certificates on the web, though, and as as someone who has run a web host for a large client-cert-using population I think this is a reasonable move: in particular, the protocol doesn't provide confidentiality for client cert data any more than it provides for server cert data, so if your name is in the subject it is sent in the clear which is a huge privacy violation, and there's no obvious way to implement a "logout" button, because auth is tied to SSL. You can work around these things, but at that point it's not obviously better than just doing some auth with WebCrypto (or your own WASM) and localStorage, and the tradeoff of using SSL client certs is that the complexity is inside your SSL layer and not sandboxed to the individual websites.
- tialaramex 8y ago
  I happen to like, and have used, mutual authentication (and thus client certs) for B2B HTTPS APIs where the systems at both ends are servers not people or user agents. I agree it's not so great for people. FWIW TLS 1.3 encryption kicks in before the certificates get sent, in either direction, so if you like/ need client certs but worry about confidentiality you should go to 1.3 Oh TLS 1.3 also has nicer filters so you can tell a client "Hi, please send me a client cert, but, I want one that has the following properties based on ASN.1 OIDs" whereas with earlier TLS versions you could only say "Here is the list of Certificate Authorities which I trust to issue client certs, give me any cert you have from one of those CAs".
- pmorici 8y ago
  A logout button could work the same way as with usernames and passwords. Sure you could use the cert to reauth the user with every page load but you could also use a traditional login page you just replace the user / password entry with the certificates and then operate as usual from there. Same with privacy it is all in the implementation details.
  - rocqua 8y ago
    A logout button doesn't give extra security if anyone with access to the PC can hit the 'login' button. So unless access to the cert is behind a password there is no useful way to logout using client certs.
    - pmorici 8y ago
      The user usually has the option to require a pin be supplied to unlock the hardware token. The advantage to certificates on a hardware token is that they can't be stolen remotely unlike a user name and password which can be compromised on either the user end or service provider end.
  - geofft 8y ago
    i.e., put a cookie on the site, and trust the cookie instead of the cert for all pages except the login one? That leaves you with all the usual problems of cookie-based logins that certs are supposed to solve (revocation, risk of being stolen, etc.), and also if you want to do that you can just put a private key in localStorage and use WebCrypto on the login page. Or with username + no password + FIDO security key as your only factor, if you want a hardware token, or whatever. There's no advantage in using SSL for this.
    - pmorici 8y ago
      The point of the hardware token is that the credential never touches the PC. Putting a private key in local storage is no better than a user name and password because it leaves it open to theft. The most common problem that an everyday user faces is either a data breach on the service provider end or a virus / keylogger on their PC. Hardware tokens with certs solve both those problems in terms of account access.

geofft 8y ago

Google has been behind the effort to kill client certificates on the web, though, and as as someone who has run a web host for a large client-cert-using population I think this is a reasonable move: in particular, the protocol doesn't provide confidentiality for client cert data any more than it provides for server cert data, so if your name is in the subject it is sent in the clear which is a huge privacy violation, and there's no obvious way to implement a "logout" button, because auth is tied to SSL. You can work around these things, but at that point it's not obviously better than just doing some auth with WebCrypto (or your own WASM) and localStorage, and the tradeoff of using SSL client certs is that the complexity is inside your SSL layer and not sandboxed to the individual websites.

tialaramex 8y ago
I happen to like, and have used, mutual authentication (and thus client certs) for B2B HTTPS APIs where the systems at both ends are servers not people or user agents. I agree it's not so great for people. FWIW TLS 1.3 encryption kicks in before the certificates get sent, in either direction, so if you like/ need client certs but worry about confidentiality you should go to 1.3 Oh TLS 1.3 also has nicer filters so you can tell a client "Hi, please send me a client cert, but, I want one that has the following properties based on ASN.1 OIDs" whereas with earlier TLS versions you could only say "Here is the list of Certificate Authorities which I trust to issue client certs, give me any cert you have from one of those CAs".
pmorici 8y ago
A logout button could work the same way as with usernames and passwords. Sure you could use the cert to reauth the user with every page load but you could also use a traditional login page you just replace the user / password entry with the certificates and then operate as usual from there. Same with privacy it is all in the implementation details.
- rocqua 8y ago
  A logout button doesn't give extra security if anyone with access to the PC can hit the 'login' button. So unless access to the cert is behind a password there is no useful way to logout using client certs.
  - pmorici 8y ago
    The user usually has the option to require a pin be supplied to unlock the hardware token. The advantage to certificates on a hardware token is that they can't be stolen remotely unlike a user name and password which can be compromised on either the user end or service provider end.
- geofft 8y ago
  i.e., put a cookie on the site, and trust the cookie instead of the cert for all pages except the login one? That leaves you with all the usual problems of cookie-based logins that certs are supposed to solve (revocation, risk of being stolen, etc.), and also if you want to do that you can just put a private key in localStorage and use WebCrypto on the login page. Or with username + no password + FIDO security key as your only factor, if you want a hardware token, or whatever. There's no advantage in using SSL for this.
  - pmorici 8y ago
    The point of the hardware token is that the credential never touches the PC. Putting a private key in local storage is no better than a user name and password because it leaves it open to theft. The most common problem that an everyday user faces is either a data breach on the service provider end or a virus / keylogger on their PC. Hardware tokens with certs solve both those problems in terms of account access.