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On the contrary, the idea that a mom-and-pop shop running an HTTP website on some ancient shared hosting can easily just drop in Cloudflare is a Good Thing. Sur

by btown 5y ago

On the contrary, the idea that a mom-and-pop shop running an HTTP website on some ancient shared hosting can easily just drop in Cloudflare is a Good Thing. Sure, you're not removing the attack surface, a state actor could intercept the server-to-server connections... but at least the hacked router in your customers' coffee shop is removed from the threat model. You make it any tougher, and that HTTP website is just going to stay HTTP forever.

captn3m0 5y ago
Hence, my recommendation of a "Big Red Warning" on picking anything lower than Strict SSL. A user must knowingly choose this option, and many websites which picked Flexible SSL could easily be upgraded to Strict SSL today. CloudFlare must work towards upgrading these users, especially where it can easily identify that SSL is supported at the origin server (such as Shopify, GitHub etc).
r1ch 5y ago
The downside of such a setup is that as a user, I now have no idea if the site is actually secure. If the mom-and-pop shop is taking credit card orders and has a secure Cloudflare cert, how do I know they aren't then transmitting my credit card number and other personal data unencrypted the rest of the way? If the website was HTTP I would know as a user not to enter sensitive info. This is why I think flexible SSL is worse than no SSL. Cloudflare's own docs used to say Flexible SSL "should only be used as a last resort if you are not able to setup SSL on your own web server, but it is less secure than any other option (even “Off”)" (this has since been removed).
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  > The downside of such a setup is that as a user, I now have no idea if the site is actually secure. You never do. SSL is not sufficient for security. It protects against a single attack vector, that's if it's set up correctly. For all you know, the set up of the server your visiting might have be old enough to have a driver's license, with public SSH and the root password "12345".

by btown 5y ago

captn3m0 5y ago

Hence, my recommendation of a "Big Red Warning" on picking anything lower than Strict SSL. A user must knowingly choose this option, and many websites which picked Flexible SSL could easily be upgraded to Strict SSL today. CloudFlare must work towards upgrading these users, especially where it can easily identify that SSL is supported at the origin server (such as Shopify, GitHub etc).

r1ch 5y ago

The downside of such a setup is that as a user, I now have no idea if the site is actually secure. If the mom-and-pop shop is taking credit card orders and has a secure Cloudflare cert, how do I know they aren't then transmitting my credit card number and other personal data unencrypted the rest of the way? If the website was HTTP I would know as a user not to enter sensitive info. This is why I think flexible SSL is worse than no SSL. Cloudflare's own docs used to say Flexible SSL "should only be used as a last resort if you are not able to setup SSL on your own web server, but it is less secure than any other option (even “Off”)" (this has since been removed).

marginalia_nu 5y ago
> The downside of such a setup is that as a user, I now have no idea if the site is actually secure. You never do. SSL is not sufficient for security. It protects against a single attack vector, that's if it's set up correctly. For all you know, the set up of the server your visiting might have be old enough to have a driver's license, with public SSH and the root password "12345".