3 ms·

They have. Take a look at the default root CA list in your browser. The big governments are represented and therefore can MITM anyone they want.

dredmorbius 15y ago
The fact that Honest Achmed's Used Cars & Ceritficates would, if issued a root cert, be as able as any other certificate authority to issue a cert for any entity including: *.*.com *.*.org ... is like saying that you'll accept a US Passport issued by any country in the world, including, say, North Korea or Iran. While the crypto behind SSL/TLS is strong, the trust model is very clearly very broken. With governments able to issue certs, as onedognight notes, there's no option of a commercial death sentence. As experiences with RIM/India and Microsoft / Google and China show, at least some governments would be able to apply sufficient pressure on software producers to be able to at least make governmental root revocation not automatic in all circumstances. http://www.livehacking.com/2011/04/25/honest-achmeds-used-cars-and-certificates-wants-to-become-a-trusted-certificate-authority/ http://www.livehacking.com/2011/04/25/honest-achmeds-used-ca...
- ctz 15y ago
  Let's be clear: the SSL/TLS protocol specifies no certification structure. This structure was built by the members of CAB in the relatively distant past. It /is/ possible to use TLS to make a genuinely good secure web. Unfortunately at the moment there isn't a strong enough economic reason to fix the current certification structure -- while fundamentally broken, it isn't broken enough in practice yet. Something like an large ISP-level compromise of banking services using mis-issued certificates would probably incur some action.
  - dredmorbius 15y ago
    It's not sufficient to defend crypto in theory without considering how it's used in practice and what real-life threats exist as a result. That's been one of the key themes in Bruce Schneier's work since Applied Cryptography. In that book he laid the foundations for strong crypto. In his subsequent works, he's shown that strong crypto, inappropriately applied, isn't secure, and that security bogeymen, particularly those against which we take countermeasures which are both ineffective and expensive (and not just in financial terms) are themselves more potent risks than the real threats we face. The real tragedy is in crippling ourselves and spending treasure fighting the phantoms while ignoring real threats and dangers.

dredmorbius 15y ago

The fact that Honest Achmed's Used Cars & Ceritficates would, if issued a root cert, be as able as any other certificate authority to issue a cert for any entity including: *.*.com *.*.org ... is like saying that you'll accept a US Passport issued by any country in the world, including, say, North Korea or Iran. While the crypto behind SSL/TLS is strong, the trust model is very clearly very broken. With governments able to issue certs, as onedognight notes, there's no option of a commercial death sentence. As experiences with RIM/India and Microsoft / Google and China show, at least some governments would be able to apply sufficient pressure on software producers to be able to at least make governmental root revocation not automatic in all circumstances. http://www.livehacking.com/2011/04/25/honest-achmeds-used-cars-and-certificates-wants-to-become-a-trusted-certificate-authority/ http://www.livehacking.com/2011/04/25/honest-achmeds-used-ca...

ctz 15y ago
Let's be clear: the SSL/TLS protocol specifies no certification structure. This structure was built by the members of CAB in the relatively distant past. It /is/ possible to use TLS to make a genuinely good secure web. Unfortunately at the moment there isn't a strong enough economic reason to fix the current certification structure -- while fundamentally broken, it isn't broken enough in practice yet. Something like an large ISP-level compromise of banking services using mis-issued certificates would probably incur some action.
- dredmorbius 15y ago
  It's not sufficient to defend crypto in theory without considering how it's used in practice and what real-life threats exist as a result. That's been one of the key themes in Bruce Schneier's work since Applied Cryptography. In that book he laid the foundations for strong crypto. In his subsequent works, he's shown that strong crypto, inappropriately applied, isn't secure, and that security bogeymen, particularly those against which we take countermeasures which are both ineffective and expensive (and not just in financial terms) are themselves more potent risks than the real threats we face. The real tragedy is in crippling ourselves and spending treasure fighting the phantoms while ignoring real threats and dangers.