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I support the notion of enabling HTTPS by default, but calling this "privacy" is a bit optimistic given the way things are these days. Supposing the NSA wanted

I support the notion of enabling HTTPS by default, but calling this "privacy" is a bit optimistic given the way things are these days. Supposing the NSA wanted to spy on your traffic to tbray.org. Would it not be as simple as them asking Verisign (or whoever signed the server's SSL cert) to hand them the server's private key? I think true privacy would require a bit more hassle than most users are willing to deal with right now, and that's a shame.

btilly 14y ago
No, it would not be that simple. Verisign does not have the private key, they only have the public and their role here is to confirm that it is the public key. For the NSA to spy, they need to get Verisign to issue a second certificate, and then to use it to construct a mirror of your site using a man-in-the-middle attack. Then they'd have to route your traffic through their server in one of various ways (the simplest being to confuse your machine about the DNS entry). It is still doable, and no doubt they do it already. But they can't do it on a wide scale without being caught at it. And they haven't been.
- nathan_long 14y ago
  They could ask your ISP for your DNS queries, however. That would at least tell them what sites you're visiting.
  - michaelt 14y ago
    When opening an SSL connection your browser typically transmits the server name unencrypted, so the server knows which public key to send you. This is known as Server Name Indication [1]. SSL doesn't stop people seeing what servers you connect to, or the amount of traffic you exchange with each one. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication
    - chimeracoder 14y ago
      > SSL doesn't stop people seeing what servers you connect to, or the amount of traffic you exchange with each one. Tor does, however - all except the exit node, that is.
- SwellJoe 14y ago
  The wonderful thing about a free and open Internet developed by passionate participants is that they were anticipating not just having bad actors being criminals working outside the law. They anticipated states being the bad actors (which has proven to have been quite prescient, even in the case of "good" states like the US, Canada, UK, Australia, etc.); states with the ability to bribe or force participating network owners to allow unfettered access. And, they built the protocols to work, anyway. Of course, this is also just a side effect of good security practices. If a state can break it, a well-connected criminal can, too. But, I'm pretty confident the creators of SSL were also thinking of China and North Korea and other violently oppressive regimes.
- graue 14y ago
  The TACK proposal would pin public keys to domains to prevent even this attack. http://tack.io/ http://tack.io/ Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4010711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4010711
  - andrewcooke 14y ago
    surprised it's not mentioned there, but the perspectives plugin (chrome + firefox) is similar, if anyone wants automated checks now (only time i've noticed it fail, amusingly, was on eff's site)
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
jmillikin 14y ago
That's like saying your bedroom isn't private because some black-helicopter agency could use radar to look through your roof. While HTTPS does not confer absolute privacy, and it's theoretically possible for a well-financed nation-state to compromise a targeted individual's privacy despite HTTPS, the fact remains that for the other 99.9999999% percent of society it can be considered unbreakable. Certainly, encouraging widespread adoption of HTTPS is a good idea when the majority of websites are still transmitting login and session credentials in clear text! Even news.yc doesn't enable a secure connection unless you explicitly type https:// https:// in the location bar, and many websites I log in to don't even have HTTPS support.

btilly 14y ago

No, it would not be that simple. Verisign does not have the private key, they only have the public and their role here is to confirm that it is the public key. For the NSA to spy, they need to get Verisign to issue a second certificate, and then to use it to construct a mirror of your site using a man-in-the-middle attack. Then they'd have to route your traffic through their server in one of various ways (the simplest being to confuse your machine about the DNS entry). It is still doable, and no doubt they do it already. But they can't do it on a wide scale without being caught at it. And they haven't been.

nathan_long 14y ago
They could ask your ISP for your DNS queries, however. That would at least tell them what sites you're visiting.
- michaelt 14y ago
  When opening an SSL connection your browser typically transmits the server name unencrypted, so the server knows which public key to send you. This is known as Server Name Indication [1]. SSL doesn't stop people seeing what servers you connect to, or the amount of traffic you exchange with each one. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication
  - chimeracoder 14y ago
    > SSL doesn't stop people seeing what servers you connect to, or the amount of traffic you exchange with each one. Tor does, however - all except the exit node, that is.
SwellJoe 14y ago
The wonderful thing about a free and open Internet developed by passionate participants is that they were anticipating not just having bad actors being criminals working outside the law. They anticipated states being the bad actors (which has proven to have been quite prescient, even in the case of "good" states like the US, Canada, UK, Australia, etc.); states with the ability to bribe or force participating network owners to allow unfettered access. And, they built the protocols to work, anyway. Of course, this is also just a side effect of good security practices. If a state can break it, a well-connected criminal can, too. But, I'm pretty confident the creators of SSL were also thinking of China and North Korea and other violently oppressive regimes.
graue 14y ago
The TACK proposal would pin public keys to domains to prevent even this attack. http://tack.io/ http://tack.io/ Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4010711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4010711
- andrewcooke 14y ago
  surprised it's not mentioned there, but the perspectives plugin (chrome + firefox) is similar, if anyone wants automated checks now (only time i've noticed it fail, amusingly, was on eff's site)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

jmillikin 14y ago

That's like saying your bedroom isn't private because some black-helicopter agency could use radar to look through your roof. While HTTPS does not confer absolute privacy, and it's theoretically possible for a well-financed nation-state to compromise a targeted individual's privacy despite HTTPS, the fact remains that for the other 99.9999999% percent of society it can be considered unbreakable. Certainly, encouraging widespread adoption of HTTPS is a good idea when the majority of websites are still transmitting login and session credentials in clear text! Even news.yc doesn't enable a secure connection unless you explicitly type https:// https:// in the location bar, and many websites I log in to don't even have HTTPS support.