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This is a super disappointing read coming from cloudflare. Even if I didn't disagree with the author about who exactly 'caused' these outages (I'm not blaming t

This is a super disappointing read coming from cloudflare. Even if I didn't disagree with the author about who exactly 'caused' these outages (I'm not blaming the users for the breaking change). I have to disagree with the suggestions. If the goal is availability; why is automation and constant cert and key rotation preferred? It's better to have to get it right every single time, over getting it right once? That's a wild take. I guess it's the behavior and recommendation I should expect from cloudflare, they are after all looking to sell, what's effectively a maintenance contract in concert with their expertise. But if I was gonna buy cloudflare, it would be for their expertise. They're industry leading for a reason. They used to be right. So I guess it's disappointing not only that they're wrong here in this article, but it's also disappointing they'd sell off some of their credibility earned by their expertise to trick people into an implementation with a much larger maintenance cost. Anyone have any alternatives to cloudflare, is there anyone who still values correctness over making money?

agwa 2y ago
Every single CA - including non-profit CAs like Let's Encrypt - have made mistakes that require cert rotation. And sometimes it isn't mistakes that require cert rotation, but cryptographic breakthroughs that render the algorithms in the cert insecure. It's much better engineering to accept that certs will need to be rotated and make sure it happens regularly so it's not a huge emergency when it's required.
- grayhatter 2y ago
  > And sometimes it isn't mistakes that require cert rotation, but cryptographic breakthroughs that render the algorithms in the cert insecure. Do you have an example of this happening? I know I remember a few cases that sound similar, but weakening of a signature, or key is very different from it breaking. I'll also point out, if you find the signature made by a CA is weakened such that it can be forged; certificate pinning would actually protect existing users from such an attack. > It's much better engineering to accept that certs will need to be rotated that's a very debatable assertion, but I don't disagree outright > and make sure it happens regularly so it's not a huge emergency when it's required. No, that's not good engineering. Do something needlessly, so that it's easy to do it when it becomes required is operations not engineering. Engineering would be designing a system that requires the minimal amount of operational support. Certs do need to be updated, and maintanted, they don't need to be rotated.
  - agwa 2y ago
    512 bit RSA used to be common in publicly-trusted certificates. That's very easily breakable on today's hardware. If quantum computers happen, all existing keys in the WebPKI will be broken.
  - woodruffw 2y ago
    > Do you have an example of this happening? I know I remember a few cases that sound similar, but weakening of a signature, or key is very different from it breaking. Flame (back in 2012) was a pretty famous example of certificate forgery due to weak hash choice (MD5) and other operational weaknesses in the PKI (predictable serial numbers, if I remember correctly). > Do something needlessly, so that it's easy to do it when it becomes required is operations not engineering. I don't think that's a good interpretation of what 'agwa meant. I'm pretty sure he meant that it's considered good engineering practice to build systems that don't encourage the normalization of deviance, which long-lived certificates combined with manual rotation procedures historically have. Or put another way: automatic rotation procedures ensure the isostability of a PKI, rather than its brittle stability.

agwa 2y ago

Every single CA - including non-profit CAs like Let's Encrypt - have made mistakes that require cert rotation. And sometimes it isn't mistakes that require cert rotation, but cryptographic breakthroughs that render the algorithms in the cert insecure. It's much better engineering to accept that certs will need to be rotated and make sure it happens regularly so it's not a huge emergency when it's required.

grayhatter 2y ago
> And sometimes it isn't mistakes that require cert rotation, but cryptographic breakthroughs that render the algorithms in the cert insecure. Do you have an example of this happening? I know I remember a few cases that sound similar, but weakening of a signature, or key is very different from it breaking. I'll also point out, if you find the signature made by a CA is weakened such that it can be forged; certificate pinning would actually protect existing users from such an attack. > It's much better engineering to accept that certs will need to be rotated that's a very debatable assertion, but I don't disagree outright > and make sure it happens regularly so it's not a huge emergency when it's required. No, that's not good engineering. Do something needlessly, so that it's easy to do it when it becomes required is operations not engineering. Engineering would be designing a system that requires the minimal amount of operational support. Certs do need to be updated, and maintanted, they don't need to be rotated.
- agwa 2y ago
  512 bit RSA used to be common in publicly-trusted certificates. That's very easily breakable on today's hardware. If quantum computers happen, all existing keys in the WebPKI will be broken.
- woodruffw 2y ago
  > Do you have an example of this happening? I know I remember a few cases that sound similar, but weakening of a signature, or key is very different from it breaking. Flame (back in 2012) was a pretty famous example of certificate forgery due to weak hash choice (MD5) and other operational weaknesses in the PKI (predictable serial numbers, if I remember correctly). > Do something needlessly, so that it's easy to do it when it becomes required is operations not engineering. I don't think that's a good interpretation of what 'agwa meant. I'm pretty sure he meant that it's considered good engineering practice to build systems that don't encourage the normalization of deviance, which long-lived certificates combined with manual rotation procedures historically have. Or put another way: automatic rotation procedures ensure the isostability of a PKI, rather than its brittle stability.