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That doesn't make it correct. Imagine if someone had said, "We don't need to secure HTTP, we'll just rely on E2E encryption and trust-on-first-use". I would r

That doesn't make it correct. Imagine if someone had said, "We don't need to secure HTTP, we'll just rely on E2E encryption and trust-on-first-use". I would really like it if we had a way to automatically cryptographically verify non-web protocols when they connect. But there is no money in making that a solution and a TON of money in selling you BS HTTPS certs. There is a lot of people spreading FUD about it. It's a shame.

bawolff 7mo ago
> But there is no money in making that a solution and a TON of money in selling you BS HTTPS certs Ah yes, because lets encrypt is rolling in the $$$$.
- indolering 7mo ago
  Mark Shuttleworth paid for his ride to the space station by selling HTTPS certs. The sad thing is that Mozilla and others have to spend millions bankrolling Let's Encrypt instead of using the free, high assurance PKI that is native to the internet!
  - tptacek 7mo ago
    Yes, the whole point of LetsEncrypt was to prevent that from happening again, and it now dominates the market.
  - ekr____ 7mo ago
    It's not really free, though. Rather, the costs are distributed rather than centralized, but running DNSSEC and keeping it working incurs new operational costs for the domain holders, who need to manage keys and DNSSEC signing, etc. And of course there are additional marginal costs to the registrars of managing customer DNSSEC, both building automation and providing customer service when it fails. It's of course possible that the total numbers are lower than the costs of the WebPKI -- I haven't run them -- but I don't think free is the right word.
    - indolering 7mo ago
      I mean, I guess the costs are paid for by the domain name fee. But at least it doesn't have to be a charitable activity covered by non-profits. The early HTTPS certs were especially worthless and price-gouging.
      - ekr____ 7mo ago
        > But at least it doesn't have to be a charitable activity covered by non-profits. LE isn't primarily funded by non-profits, as you can see from the sponsor list here: https://isrg.org/sponsors/ https://isrg.org/sponsors/ Anyway, I think there's a reasonable case that it would be better to have the costs distributed the way DNSSEC does, but my point is just that it's not free. Rather, you're moving the costs around. Like I said, it may be cheaper in aggregate, but I think you'd need to make that case.
        indolering 7mo ago
        > LE isn't primarily funded by non-profits, as you can see from the sponsor list here: https://isrg.org/sponsors/ https://isrg.org/sponsors/ I mean, Mozilla got the ball rolling and it's still run on donations (even if they come from private actors). > Like I said, it may be cheaper in aggregate, but I think you'd need to make that case. The PKI is already there: we have 7 people who can do a multisig for new root keys. There is a signing ceremony in a secure bunker somewhere that gets live streamed. The HSMs and servers are already paid for. Cert transparency/monitoring is nice but now it's hard-coded to HTTPS instead of being done more generically. There's a lot of duplicated effort.
        ekr____ 7mo ago
        > > LE isn't primarily funded by non-profits, as you can see from the sponsor list here: https://isrg.org/sponsors/ https://isrg.org/sponsors/ > > I mean, Mozilla got the ball rolling Among others: Let’s Encrypt was created through the merging of two simultaneous efforts to build a fully automated certificate authority. In 2012, a group led by Alex Halderman at the University of Michigan and Peter Eckersley at EFF was developing a protocol for automatically issuing and renewing certificates. Simultaneously, a team at Mozilla led by Josh Aas and Eric Rescorla was working on creating a free and automated certificate authority. The groups learned of each other’s efforts and joined forces in May 2013. ... Initially, ISRG was funded almost entirely through large dona- tions from technology companies. In late 2014, it secured financial commitments from Akamai, Cisco, EFF, and Mozilla, allowing the organization to purchase equipment, secure hosting contracts, and pay initial staff. Today, ISRG has more diverse funding sources; in 2018 it received 83% of its funding from corporate sponsors, 14% from grants and major gifts, and 3% from individual giving. Except for the period before the launch when Mozilla and EFF were paying people's salaries, including mine, it was never really the case that Let's Encrypt was primarily funded by non-profits. > and it's still run on donations (even if they come from private actors). I agree, but I think it's important to be precise about what's happening here, and like I said, it's never been the case that LE was really funded by non-profits. > > Like I said, it may be cheaper in aggregate, but I think you'd need to make that case. > > The PKI is already there: we have 7 people who can do a multisig for new root keys. There is a signing ceremony in a secure bunker somewhere that gets live streamed. The HSMs and servers are already paid for. Cert transparency/monitoring is nice but now it's hard-coded to HTTPS instead of being done more generically. There's a lot of duplicated effort. I think this is a category error. The main operational cost for DNSSEC is not really the root, which is comparatively low load, but rather the distributed operations for every registry/registrar, and server to register keys, sign domains, etc. One way to think about this is that running a TLD with DNSSEC is conceptually similar to operating a CA in that you have to take in everyone's keys and sign them. It's true you don't need to validate their domains, but that's not the expensive part. Operating this machinery isn't free, especially when you have to handle exceptional cases like people who screw up their domains and need manual help to recover. Now, it's possible that it's a marginal incremental cost, but I doubt it's zero. Upthread, you suggested that people are already paying for this in their domain registrations, but that just means that the TLD operator is going to have to absorb the incremental cost.

bawolff 7mo ago

> But there is no money in making that a solution and a TON of money in selling you BS HTTPS certs Ah yes, because lets encrypt is rolling in the $$$$.

indolering 7mo ago
Mark Shuttleworth paid for his ride to the space station by selling HTTPS certs. The sad thing is that Mozilla and others have to spend millions bankrolling Let's Encrypt instead of using the free, high assurance PKI that is native to the internet!
- tptacek 7mo ago
  Yes, the whole point of LetsEncrypt was to prevent that from happening again, and it now dominates the market.
- ekr____ 7mo ago
  It's not really free, though. Rather, the costs are distributed rather than centralized, but running DNSSEC and keeping it working incurs new operational costs for the domain holders, who need to manage keys and DNSSEC signing, etc. And of course there are additional marginal costs to the registrars of managing customer DNSSEC, both building automation and providing customer service when it fails. It's of course possible that the total numbers are lower than the costs of the WebPKI -- I haven't run them -- but I don't think free is the right word.
  - indolering 7mo ago
    I mean, I guess the costs are paid for by the domain name fee. But at least it doesn't have to be a charitable activity covered by non-profits. The early HTTPS certs were especially worthless and price-gouging.
    - ekr____ 7mo ago
      > But at least it doesn't have to be a charitable activity covered by non-profits. LE isn't primarily funded by non-profits, as you can see from the sponsor list here: https://isrg.org/sponsors/ https://isrg.org/sponsors/ Anyway, I think there's a reasonable case that it would be better to have the costs distributed the way DNSSEC does, but my point is just that it's not free. Rather, you're moving the costs around. Like I said, it may be cheaper in aggregate, but I think you'd need to make that case.
      - indolering 7mo ago
        > LE isn't primarily funded by non-profits, as you can see from the sponsor list here: https://isrg.org/sponsors/ https://isrg.org/sponsors/ I mean, Mozilla got the ball rolling and it's still run on donations (even if they come from private actors). > Like I said, it may be cheaper in aggregate, but I think you'd need to make that case. The PKI is already there: we have 7 people who can do a multisig for new root keys. There is a signing ceremony in a secure bunker somewhere that gets live streamed. The HSMs and servers are already paid for. Cert transparency/monitoring is nice but now it's hard-coded to HTTPS instead of being done more generically. There's a lot of duplicated effort.
        ekr____ 7mo ago
        > > LE isn't primarily funded by non-profits, as you can see from the sponsor list here: https://isrg.org/sponsors/ https://isrg.org/sponsors/ > > I mean, Mozilla got the ball rolling Among others: Let’s Encrypt was created through the merging of two simultaneous efforts to build a fully automated certificate authority. In 2012, a group led by Alex Halderman at the University of Michigan and Peter Eckersley at EFF was developing a protocol for automatically issuing and renewing certificates. Simultaneously, a team at Mozilla led by Josh Aas and Eric Rescorla was working on creating a free and automated certificate authority. The groups learned of each other’s efforts and joined forces in May 2013. ... Initially, ISRG was funded almost entirely through large dona- tions from technology companies. In late 2014, it secured financial commitments from Akamai, Cisco, EFF, and Mozilla, allowing the organization to purchase equipment, secure hosting contracts, and pay initial staff. Today, ISRG has more diverse funding sources; in 2018 it received 83% of its funding from corporate sponsors, 14% from grants and major gifts, and 3% from individual giving. Except for the period before the launch when Mozilla and EFF were paying people's salaries, including mine, it was never really the case that Let's Encrypt was primarily funded by non-profits. > and it's still run on donations (even if they come from private actors). I agree, but I think it's important to be precise about what's happening here, and like I said, it's never been the case that LE was really funded by non-profits. > > Like I said, it may be cheaper in aggregate, but I think you'd need to make that case. > > The PKI is already there: we have 7 people who can do a multisig for new root keys. There is a signing ceremony in a secure bunker somewhere that gets live streamed. The HSMs and servers are already paid for. Cert transparency/monitoring is nice but now it's hard-coded to HTTPS instead of being done more generically. There's a lot of duplicated effort. I think this is a category error. The main operational cost for DNSSEC is not really the root, which is comparatively low load, but rather the distributed operations for every registry/registrar, and server to register keys, sign domains, etc. One way to think about this is that running a TLD with DNSSEC is conceptually similar to operating a CA in that you have to take in everyone's keys and sign them. It's true you don't need to validate their domains, but that's not the expensive part. Operating this machinery isn't free, especially when you have to handle exceptional cases like people who screw up their domains and need manual help to recover. Now, it's possible that it's a marginal incremental cost, but I doubt it's zero. Upthread, you suggested that people are already paying for this in their domain registrations, but that just means that the TLD operator is going to have to absorb the incremental cost.