4 ms·

There are not many cases where you can read traffic, but not intercept/inject your own. All you need to do is generate your own cert for the site and the user

by mukyu 16y ago

There are not many cases where you can read traffic, but not intercept/inject your own. All you need to do is generate your own cert for the site and the user will encrypt their traffic to you. This is why the lack authentication means that no confidentiality is provided.

rwmj 16y ago
You just ensure the browser warns you if the self-signed certificate changes. It works fine this way for ssh.
- arethuza 16y ago
  Out of interest, if you are warned that a site's SSL certificate has changed, what steps would you take to confirm the authenticity of the new certificate?
  - ezyang 16y ago
    You use the same model as SSH: give a big warning with klaxons "Warning, this site's SSL certificate has changed, it is possible that you are being actively attacked" and then force the user to dig into an text file and manually remove the offending memorized entry (no prompt for saying "Ignore and carry on"). The hope being that an inexperienced user would find someone more competent to help them out. There are loads of ways this could go wrong (the phishing website earnestly telling the user that they "changed" their SSL key and that you need to follow these simple steps to "fix" your browser; the initial contact being the bogus website; the huge loss of traffic if your SSL key legitimately changes and you're not prepared; you need to deal with revocation).
  - ZoFreX 16y ago
    I normally contact someone who is on a completely different internet connection to myself. I asked a friend of mine who lives the other side of the world to tell me what he saw the cert in question as, and it did not match the cert I was being given, so I rejected it.
- mukyu 16y ago
  That is key continuity. It works for ssh because you generally know the parties you are trying to connect to ahead of time and have ways to communicate with them (to confirm keys etc). You do not have the same relationship with 99.99% of the servers you will be connecting to over https. It does not work.
  - rwmj 16y ago
    Actually I don't visit webservers with a uniform random distribution. I come back to some frequently (eg. my bank, HN, BBC News, ...) Maybe that's just me though.

by mukyu 16y ago

rwmj 16y ago

You just ensure the browser warns you if the self-signed certificate changes. It works fine this way for ssh.

arethuza 16y ago
Out of interest, if you are warned that a site's SSL certificate has changed, what steps would you take to confirm the authenticity of the new certificate?
- ezyang 16y ago
  You use the same model as SSH: give a big warning with klaxons "Warning, this site's SSL certificate has changed, it is possible that you are being actively attacked" and then force the user to dig into an text file and manually remove the offending memorized entry (no prompt for saying "Ignore and carry on"). The hope being that an inexperienced user would find someone more competent to help them out. There are loads of ways this could go wrong (the phishing website earnestly telling the user that they "changed" their SSL key and that you need to follow these simple steps to "fix" your browser; the initial contact being the bogus website; the huge loss of traffic if your SSL key legitimately changes and you're not prepared; you need to deal with revocation).
- ZoFreX 16y ago
  I normally contact someone who is on a completely different internet connection to myself. I asked a friend of mine who lives the other side of the world to tell me what he saw the cert in question as, and it did not match the cert I was being given, so I rejected it.
mukyu 16y ago
That is key continuity. It works for ssh because you generally know the parties you are trying to connect to ahead of time and have ways to communicate with them (to confirm keys etc). You do not have the same relationship with 99.99% of the servers you will be connecting to over https. It does not work.
- rwmj 16y ago
  Actually I don't visit webservers with a uniform random distribution. I come back to some frequently (eg. my bank, HN, BBC News, ...) Maybe that's just me though.