4 ms·
How is "client certificates forbidden" in any way an improvement?
by xg15 9mo ago
How is "client certificates forbidden" in any way an improvement?
- Avamander 9mo agoNot forbidden, just not going to be a part of WebPKI. It's one of those things that has just piggybacked on top of WebPKI and things just piggybacking is a bad idea. There have been multiple cases in the past where this has caused a lot of pain for making meaningful improvements (some of those have been mentioned elsewhere in this thread).
- xg15 9mo agoWhat exactly do you mean with "WebPKI"? The PKI system was designed independently of the web and the web used to be one usecase of it. You're kind of turning that around here.
- Avamander 9mo agoThe idea of a PKI was of course designed independently, there are many very large PKIs beyond WebPKI. However the one used by browsers is what we call WebPKI and that has its own CAs and rules. You're trying to make it sound like there has ever been some kind of an universal PKI that can be used for everything and without any issues.
- mcpherrinm 9mo agoThe current PKI system was designed by Netscape as part of SSL to enable secure connections to websites. It was never independent of the web. Of course PKIs and TLS have expanded beyond that. "WebPKI" is the term used to refer to the PKI used by the web, with root stores managed by the browsers. Let's Encrypt is a WebPKI CA.
- bawolff 9mo ago> What exactly do you mean with "WebPKI"? WebPKI is the name of a specific PKI system, where PKI us a generic term for any PKI.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- bawolff 9mo agoAs a general rule in cryptography, a lot of vulnerabilities relate confusing the system by using a correct thing in the wrong context. Making it a rule that you have to use separate chains for separate purposes is a good rule from a general design standpoint.
- account42 9mo agoSo, FUD.
- kalleboo 9mo agoExcept we didn't get a separate chain - all we got is that from now on software will just ignore the "client" flag and accept the "server" flag for client purposes, adding one more hack onto the pile of hacks that is the Internet.
- bawolff 9mo agoThat's far from clear. XMPP is still probably a minor use caee of client certificates.
- kalleboo 9mo agoYeah buy why would anyone go through the trouble of bootstrapping a whole new PKI instead of just flipping an if statement? I'm curious what other use cases there have been for domain-validated client certs aside from XMPP.
- grayhatter 9mo ago> Making it a rule that you have to use separate chains for separate purposes is a good rule from a general design standpoint. No it's not. It's a specific argument, that's true only in specific cases. You shouldn't handle knives, is equally a good rule from a general design standpoint. But nonsensical when you're a chef. You should have separate chains is a reasonable decision when the ability to rotate out a compromised chain, and insulate some downtime, from other chains/usages is desirable. Needing to manage multiple cert chains is more overhead. Making use or maintenance harder. It increases complexity. Large companies have never been afraid of more overhead. It's their singular advantage. Removing features someone is using, and calling it better security, when it doesn't actually meaningfully reduce or remove some risk is weaponized incompetence. And sufficiently advanced incompetence, is.... There's no world where anyone gains additional protection, from a 3rd party compromise. Or one where LE has one of chains compromised, but doesn't rotate all of them.