6 ms·

We already have a form of key escrow in the form of public PKI infra/root CAs, etc.

dane-pgp 5y ago
We also have a certificate transparency system to detect misissuance, and some precedent for economically ruining CAs who break the public's trust. I'm not sure what would happen, though, if someone claimed that a CA had issued a certificate for their domain without permission. Assuming they could detect this and get the certificate revoked quickly, any attack could at least be stopped (after the damage had potentially already been done). You're right, though, that there's little incentive for a government to not use "legal" methods to subvert a CA within its jurisdiction, and accuse the complaining site owner of false-flag attacking their own domain for media attention, or some other excuse. If anything, I'm surprised that a government hasn't tried to poison-the-well of this system by creating a few boy-who-cried-wolf scenarios already.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  Remember that rogue driver signed by a “leaked” cert? Things like that are a lot more useful than fooling someone about some silly website. Updates to your OS or secure apps (lmao) funded by the abc soup (Signal and Free Radio Asia, read up) could be signed by the government. For the greater good, citizen.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    Does Chrome do certificate transparency on its own updates?
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    Apps and OSes shouldn't (and don't need to) make their security dependent on the web PKI. Linux distros come with their own public keys, for example, which are used to check the signatures on package updates. Things have got a bit worse recently, with the Google Play Store requiring app developers to let it build and sign the packages itself[0], but I suppose the argument is that if you don't trust Alphabet with the app signing keys, you shouldn't trust it with the signing keys for the OS updates you download. (If your Android updates are signed by keys controlled by an entity other than Alphabet, then you can presumably use an alternative app repo too). [0] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/01/android_app_bundle/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/01/android_app_bundle/

We also have a certificate transparency system to detect misissuance, and some precedent for economically ruining CAs who break the public's trust. I'm not sure what would happen, though, if someone claimed that a CA had issued a certificate for their domain without permission. Assuming they could detect this and get the certificate revoked quickly, any attack could at least be stopped (after the damage had potentially already been done). You're right, though, that there's little incentive for a government to not use "legal" methods to subvert a CA within its jurisdiction, and accuse the complaining site owner of false-flag attacking their own domain for media attention, or some other excuse. If anything, I'm surprised that a government hasn't tried to poison-the-well of this system by creating a few boy-who-cried-wolf scenarios already.

inter_netuser 5y ago
Remember that rogue driver signed by a “leaked” cert? Things like that are a lot more useful than fooling someone about some silly website. Updates to your OS or secure apps (lmao) funded by the abc soup (Signal and Free Radio Asia, read up) could be signed by the government. For the greater good, citizen.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  Does Chrome do certificate transparency on its own updates?
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  Apps and OSes shouldn't (and don't need to) make their security dependent on the web PKI. Linux distros come with their own public keys, for example, which are used to check the signatures on package updates. Things have got a bit worse recently, with the Google Play Store requiring app developers to let it build and sign the packages itself[0], but I suppose the argument is that if you don't trust Alphabet with the app signing keys, you shouldn't trust it with the signing keys for the OS updates you download. (If your Android updates are signed by keys controlled by an entity other than Alphabet, then you can presumably use an alternative app repo too). [0] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/01/android_app_bundle/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/01/android_app_bundle/