4 ms·

When browsers default-trusted one CA, others companies, quite reasonably, wanted a piece of the action and asked to be included too. Time passed and we, the gen

by billpg 6y ago

When browsers default-trusted one CA, others companies, quite reasonably, wanted a piece of the action and asked to be included too. Time passed and we, the general public, are no longer part of the conversation about who should be default-trusted. What if the browsers (and OS) didn't default-trust anyone? The various CA companies would have to include the general public in their public relations. We'd see CAs advertising for users to trust their roots. If a CA ever screwed up, they would feel it. Another part of the rot is that TLS certs can only have one root CA. If I decided I don't trust DigiCert, I would effectively cut myself off from Hacker News, because a site can only have one root CA. If a site could have multiple CAs, I would still be able to connect so long as I trusted one.

winstonewert 6y ago
That would be terrible. Regular users would either not be able to access anything or trust everything.
- langarto 6y ago
  Currently they trust everything in fact. Why should I trust Digicert for example? When did I make that decission? What does 'trust' mean if the decission is made by others?
  - jefftk 6y ago
    You trust Firefox (Mozilla), Mozilla trusts Digicert. If you don't trust Mozilla to make good security decisions, switch browsers. If you want to second-guess this particular decision, you can adjust your Firefox configuration.
    - galaxyLogic 6y ago
      As a developer what I find frustrating is that it is so difficult to make my browser trust 127.0.0.1. Shouldn't there be an easy way to configure it to trust that?
      - tsimionescu 6y ago
        What does it mean to trust an IP address? If you found that a link took you to gmail.com on 127.0.0.1:8716, would you be fine with providing your gmail credentials to that site?
        gruez 6y ago
        https://1.1.1.1/ https://1.1.1.1/ is a thing. certificate used: https://crt.sh/?id=1044327786 https://crt.sh/?id=1044327786
        silon42 6y ago
        If the site provides a trusted certificate for gmail.com, things are fine. IP shouldn't matter, port probably will.
        galaxyLogic 6y ago
        I would think I can trust anything on 127.0.0.1 because that can only be my local machine, right? If there is something running on 127.0.0.1:8716 which I have not given permission to run then my machine is compromised already. No?
      - gruez 6y ago
        AFAIK http://localhost http://localhost is treated the same as https://localhost https://localhost so you shouldn't need a self signed certificate.
        jaywalk 6y ago
        https://localhost https://localhost doesn't work without a self-signed certificate...
        jefftk 6y ago
        Sure, but you can use http://localhost http://localhost, and it will be treated as a secure origin
justin_oaks 6y ago
We seem better off having the browser vendors bring the hammer down on CAs that are issuing bad certificates. Regular people don't know enough to make valid decisions about which CAs to trust, and I don't think they should have to know either.
gruez 6y ago
>What if the browsers (and OS) didn't default-trust anyone? The various CA companies would have to include the general public in their public relations. We'd see CAs advertising for users to trust their roots. The mozilla CA program for instance, requires potential CAs to go under audits. Is what you're proposing (requiring CAs to hire an advertising/PR department to convince users) really an improvement? Bad companies can lie in either case, but at least the former feels like less waste of resources. Furthermore, forcing the user to make this decision significantly increases the social engineering risk. If the average users have to add a few dozen CAs every time they get a new computer, it will be very easy to social engineer them to add one more. See for instance, social engineering users into downloading and running malware payloads by saying they need to "update their flash player" or "install a codec". >If a CA ever screwed up, they would feel it. Nope, the too big-to-fail problem will still exist. Facebook fucked up, yet we're all still using it. Consumer boycotts rarely work. At least with browser vendors there's a unified bargaining group for users. Good luck getting measures like distrusting symantec or limiting certificate validities to 398 days via grassroots action.
earthboundkid 6y ago
How would the general public make informed decisions about root CAs if the people paid to do it for living have problems doing it?
- symlinkk 6y ago
  How would the general public create a collaborative online encyclopedia if the people paid to do it for a living have problems doing it? How would the general public create an open source operating system if the people paid to do it for a living have problems doing it?
  - dzaima 6y ago
    The "general public" isn't creating an online encyclopedia. If everyone using it edited it, it would most definitely suck. The "general public" definitely isn't writing an open source operating system. That would be an even bigger disaster. If you want to, you can contribute to both, just as you can edit your trusted certs list. But making that the default would be awful.
    - tialaramex 6y ago
      Better than that, if you have useful contributions to public oversight of the Web PKI you can contribute to m.d.s.policy. https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.security.policy https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.security.policy For example m.d.s.policy is currently considering an application from NAVER Business Platform, a South Korean outfit and I'm quite sure that a native Korean IT person could usefully contribute to the discussion.
  - earthboundkid 6y ago
    Writing one paragraph in an encyclopedia entry is a manageable task for anyone with a college education. Picking a complete and secure set of CA roots is not. To begin with, if your paragraph is wrong, it can be fixed. If your CA set is wrong, someone steals your credit card numbers.
duskwuff 6y ago
> When browsers default-trusted one CA And when was this, precisely? The copy of Netscape 1.0 I looked at didn't even have a UI to configure CAs.
- Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
  Considering Netscape was released in December 1994 and SSL came out in February 1995, there were a lot of things still in infancy.
jcranmer 6y ago
> If a CA ever screwed up, they would feel it. CAs have screwed up in the real world. And the result of those screw-ups were removal from root cert lists. And they closed down as a result. DigiNotar and WoSign both faced this calamity. There was a time when root stores let anyone in who asked nicely. That time has long since passed however; the modern process is quite involved. See Mozilla's process here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Application_Process https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Application_Process, and note that it calls out that it's expected to take two years to complete. It's not a pro forma policy: the Federal PKI [1] was not able to meet the requirements of inclusion into the root store because its rules for issuing certificates are not considered sufficient per modern browser requirements. Quite frankly, I'd place far more trust in Mozilla's ability to audit CAs than my ability to do it myself, and I'd trust the average user's ability even less than myself. Arguing that CAs having to advertise to the user is a good idea for trust ignores the fact that unsavory companies openly abuse their users and yet still have high trust. (To say nothing of politicians...) [1] This is the PKI system that's mandatory within the US government for internal certificates.

by billpg 6y ago

winstonewert 6y ago

That would be terrible. Regular users would either not be able to access anything or trust everything.

langarto 6y ago
Currently they trust everything in fact. Why should I trust Digicert for example? When did I make that decission? What does 'trust' mean if the decission is made by others?
- jefftk 6y ago
  You trust Firefox (Mozilla), Mozilla trusts Digicert. If you don't trust Mozilla to make good security decisions, switch browsers. If you want to second-guess this particular decision, you can adjust your Firefox configuration.
  - galaxyLogic 6y ago
    As a developer what I find frustrating is that it is so difficult to make my browser trust 127.0.0.1. Shouldn't there be an easy way to configure it to trust that?
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      What does it mean to trust an IP address? If you found that a link took you to gmail.com on 127.0.0.1:8716, would you be fine with providing your gmail credentials to that site?
      - gruez 6y ago
        https://1.1.1.1/ https://1.1.1.1/ is a thing. certificate used: https://crt.sh/?id=1044327786 https://crt.sh/?id=1044327786
      - silon42 6y ago
        If the site provides a trusted certificate for gmail.com, things are fine. IP shouldn't matter, port probably will.
      - galaxyLogic 6y ago
        I would think I can trust anything on 127.0.0.1 because that can only be my local machine, right? If there is something running on 127.0.0.1:8716 which I have not given permission to run then my machine is compromised already. No?
    - gruez 6y ago
      AFAIK http://localhost http://localhost is treated the same as https://localhost https://localhost so you shouldn't need a self signed certificate.
      - jaywalk 6y ago
        https://localhost https://localhost doesn't work without a self-signed certificate...
        jefftk 6y ago
        Sure, but you can use http://localhost http://localhost, and it will be treated as a secure origin

justin_oaks 6y ago

We seem better off having the browser vendors bring the hammer down on CAs that are issuing bad certificates. Regular people don't know enough to make valid decisions about which CAs to trust, and I don't think they should have to know either.

gruez 6y ago

>What if the browsers (and OS) didn't default-trust anyone? The various CA companies would have to include the general public in their public relations. We'd see CAs advertising for users to trust their roots. The mozilla CA program for instance, requires potential CAs to go under audits. Is what you're proposing (requiring CAs to hire an advertising/PR department to convince users) really an improvement? Bad companies can lie in either case, but at least the former feels like less waste of resources. Furthermore, forcing the user to make this decision significantly increases the social engineering risk. If the average users have to add a few dozen CAs every time they get a new computer, it will be very easy to social engineer them to add one more. See for instance, social engineering users into downloading and running malware payloads by saying they need to "update their flash player" or "install a codec". >If a CA ever screwed up, they would feel it. Nope, the too big-to-fail problem will still exist. Facebook fucked up, yet we're all still using it. Consumer boycotts rarely work. At least with browser vendors there's a unified bargaining group for users. Good luck getting measures like distrusting symantec or limiting certificate validities to 398 days via grassroots action.

earthboundkid 6y ago

How would the general public make informed decisions about root CAs if the people paid to do it for living have problems doing it?

symlinkk 6y ago
How would the general public create a collaborative online encyclopedia if the people paid to do it for a living have problems doing it? How would the general public create an open source operating system if the people paid to do it for a living have problems doing it?
- dzaima 6y ago
  The "general public" isn't creating an online encyclopedia. If everyone using it edited it, it would most definitely suck. The "general public" definitely isn't writing an open source operating system. That would be an even bigger disaster. If you want to, you can contribute to both, just as you can edit your trusted certs list. But making that the default would be awful.
  - tialaramex 6y ago
    Better than that, if you have useful contributions to public oversight of the Web PKI you can contribute to m.d.s.policy. https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.security.policy https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.security.policy For example m.d.s.policy is currently considering an application from NAVER Business Platform, a South Korean outfit and I'm quite sure that a native Korean IT person could usefully contribute to the discussion.
- earthboundkid 6y ago
  Writing one paragraph in an encyclopedia entry is a manageable task for anyone with a college education. Picking a complete and secure set of CA roots is not. To begin with, if your paragraph is wrong, it can be fixed. If your CA set is wrong, someone steals your credit card numbers.

duskwuff 6y ago

> When browsers default-trusted one CA And when was this, precisely? The copy of Netscape 1.0 I looked at didn't even have a UI to configure CAs.

Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
Considering Netscape was released in December 1994 and SSL came out in February 1995, there were a lot of things still in infancy.

jcranmer 6y ago

> If a CA ever screwed up, they would feel it. CAs have screwed up in the real world. And the result of those screw-ups were removal from root cert lists. And they closed down as a result. DigiNotar and WoSign both faced this calamity. There was a time when root stores let anyone in who asked nicely. That time has long since passed however; the modern process is quite involved. See Mozilla's process here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Application_Process https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Application_Process, and note that it calls out that it's expected to take two years to complete. It's not a pro forma policy: the Federal PKI [1] was not able to meet the requirements of inclusion into the root store because its rules for issuing certificates are not considered sufficient per modern browser requirements. Quite frankly, I'd place far more trust in Mozilla's ability to audit CAs than my ability to do it myself, and I'd trust the average user's ability even less than myself. Arguing that CAs having to advertise to the user is a good idea for trust ignores the fact that unsavory companies openly abuse their users and yet still have high trust. (To say nothing of politicians...) [1] This is the PKI system that's mandatory within the US government for internal certificates.