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Nothing is stopping you from starting your own CA and distributing your own web browser that trusts the certificates. What underlying transport protocol is use
by jrockway 6y ago
Nothing is stopping you from starting your own CA and distributing your own web browser that trusts the certificates. What underlying transport protocol is used doesn't change the complexity of removing corporate influence from the Internet. There is one root DNS namespace. Certificates prove that the stream your user agent receives from example.com is the example.com that is pointed to by the DNS system. That's it. No part of the Internet requires DNS or trusted-by-default CAs. It's just a convenience.
Before widespread TLS adoption, your ISP could (and did!) inject ads into arbitrary websites. Now they can't. That's a good thing. It is actually amazing how little power your ISP has to tamper with your network traffic -- all they can do it shut it off completely.
- fibers 6y ago> distributing your own web browser network effects
- jrockway 6y agoThat's the underlying issue, I think -- "nobody else wants to do my unusual thing". Most people are happy with the corporate internet, or at least indifferent. If you want to change that, you have to add some major value. (And, people have added such value; there are users of Tor, after all.) My point is, switching from HTTP/1.1 to QUIC doesn't really make a difference here. The battle against centralized control of parts of the Internet has been lost and no protocol spec is going to change that outcome. Instead, there needs to be major innovation from the camp that wants to fundamentally change the world.
- simias 6y agoI think the network effect is much weaker here. While interacting with a website without certificate (or with an invalid one) adds friction, it's still wholly possible, at least for now. It's not like switching from WhatsApp to Telegram, where you have to go from one hermetic silo to another.