3 ms·

There are two aspects that are currently adressed by https: identity and privacy. What I’m proposing does indeed only solve the privacy aspect. And for some use

by bouke 7y ago

There are two aspects that are currently adressed by https: identity and privacy. What I’m proposing does indeed only solve the privacy aspect. And for some use-cases, that’s fine. Not all use-cases (e.g. your bank), and we would still have CAs for that.

marcinzm 7y ago
I want privacy with the site I'm trying to connect to including when I do so for the first time. I don't care about privacy with whomever is running a MITM attack on me since that's rather pointless.
lvh 7y ago
How does it solve the privacy aspect if I can MITM it and replay the second half of the conversation to the real party?
joppy 7y ago
Having private communication without knowing who you're talking to is not private at all. You need to first define who you want to hide the communication from (assumedly, everyone except the server in question), and then also know that you're really talking to that server and not just someone claiming to be that server. For example, if there were a class of websites where certificates were not checked, I could configure my router to man-in-the-middle attack every connection to one of those coming from anywhere in my own network, and then re-transmit information in the clear somewhere else. To someone inside my network, their browser would report their connection as being "secure".
zahllos 7y ago
Privacy is really the wrong word in my opinion. What you mean is confidentiality. This might sound like nitpicking, but private communication might mean that some attacker does not know who is talking to whom, which is not what TLS even tries to provide (anonymous communication). The term is somewhat overloaded. You can have fully encrypted communications and still give away information you intended to be private. TLS does try to provide confidentiality and part of that is authenticating who you are talking to. Without this your communication is not at all confidential, as anyone could impersonate your intended target. A passive adversary can't read your traffic, true, but an active attacker (of for example the coffee shop dwelling variety) is not a major step up and would undermine the confidentiality aspect entirely.

by bouke 7y ago

marcinzm 7y ago

I want privacy with the site I'm trying to connect to including when I do so for the first time. I don't care about privacy with whomever is running a MITM attack on me since that's rather pointless.

lvh 7y ago

How does it solve the privacy aspect if I can MITM it and replay the second half of the conversation to the real party?

joppy 7y ago

Having private communication without knowing who you're talking to is not private at all. You need to first define who you want to hide the communication from (assumedly, everyone except the server in question), and then also know that you're really talking to that server and not just someone claiming to be that server. For example, if there were a class of websites where certificates were not checked, I could configure my router to man-in-the-middle attack every connection to one of those coming from anywhere in my own network, and then re-transmit information in the clear somewhere else. To someone inside my network, their browser would report their connection as being "secure".

zahllos 7y ago

Privacy is really the wrong word in my opinion. What you mean is confidentiality. This might sound like nitpicking, but private communication might mean that some attacker does not know who is talking to whom, which is not what TLS even tries to provide (anonymous communication). The term is somewhat overloaded. You can have fully encrypted communications and still give away information you intended to be private. TLS does try to provide confidentiality and part of that is authenticating who you are talking to. Without this your communication is not at all confidential, as anyone could impersonate your intended target. A passive adversary can't read your traffic, true, but an active attacker (of for example the coffee shop dwelling variety) is not a major step up and would undermine the confidentiality aspect entirely.