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Do people trust StartCom? Just curious ... I always wondered why you have all these very expensive cert providers who charge a lot for SSL certs, and then this

by zmmmmm 13y ago

Do people trust StartCom? Just curious ... I always wondered why you have all these very expensive cert providers who charge a lot for SSL certs, and then this mysterious company with ties to Israel is handing them out for free? I know it's pure paranoia, but this would seem to be an excellent way to compromise a lot of SSL traffic if you were into that, and the Israelis are pretty famous for all kinds of spying activity that makes PRISM look tame. Just curious what others think about this?

lem72 13y ago
This is my thoughts exactly.... Cue Conspiracy Theory
gsnedders 13y ago
And how do they guarantee identity for zero cost to them? To actually meet all the CA requirements to be a default trusted root isn't easy.
- bigiain 13y ago
  Like all inexpensive ssl certs, the only guarantee of identity is "domain validation" -if you can read mail going to webmaster@, hostmaster@, Postmaster@, or the email address in a Whois lookup for the domain in question, they'll provide you with a signed key for that domain. There are higher levels of validation - "business validation" usually involves faxing someone copies of various government supplied paperwork and receiving phone calls on publicly available phone numbers (which is just "outsourcing the identity guarantee" to yellow pages or Dun and Bradstreet.) "EV" validation ( for "green address bar as well as padlock icon" security requires all that plus spending lots of money.
lwf 13y ago
With StartCom, you just send them a CSR and they sign it. They don't get access to your key. StartCom passed an outside audit and is included in most modern browsers by default, indicating that they at least trust StartCom. They charge for the work they have to do. So, EV and identity validation cost money. Most "domain validated" certs are basically no work, as you can see from the incredibly cheap prices other SSL vendors offer them at.
- makomk 13y ago
  Actually, the default is for StartCom to generate your private key for you. They do let you generate your own private key and just upload the CSR though.
zobzu 13y ago
making certs doesn't take money. verifying you own the domain (lowest level cert) doesnt take money. all this is fully automated, everywhere. Being an SSL provider is a juicy business once you get things rolling. Now then again, it dosn't matter if you trust them or not, because your browser trust them for you. using another provider will not make you have a better trust in the sites you browse. Any of the providers can compromise everyone elses trust, as long as they're trusted by the browser. And thats why the current SSL trust scheme sucks, by the way.
- zobzu 13y ago
  (note: in chrome this is not 100% true, some certs are pinned by having their trust hardcoded. its a very small list, require browser update, and of course, you're still trusting a large CA anyway)
micahflee 13y ago
It doesn't particularly matter if people trust StartSSL, it matters if browsers trust them (which they do). There are about 100 root CAs, and something like 1000 CAs if you include intermediates (controlled by ~650 different organizations - https://www.eff.org/observatory https://www.eff.org/observatory), and browsers trust ALL of them. All it takes is one to issue a malicious cert, or to get hacked, to do a MITM attack on ANY domain without showing a browser warning. The trustworthyness of a single CA doesn't make a difference, because if any CA isn't trustworthy then an attacker can use them instead the other ones. This is the problem with CAs, and the problem with centralized trust systems in general. There are hundreds of weak points. But also, StartSSL does fairly thorough identity verification. I've had to send them photos of my passport and talk to them on the phone to do identity verification. It's also worth noting that it's the CA that both https://www.eff.org/ https://www.eff.org/ and https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/ https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/ use. As long as there's a broken CA system, the choice of CA does not matter in the slightest as long as it's trusted by browsers. Users only care if it breaks a website with a scary warning, but if it doesn't, it doesn't matter. There's no need to spend money. StartSSL does charge if you have more than very basic needs, like if you want multiple alt names, or if you want a wildcard. But it's still cheaper than the competition.
- paulgerhardt 13y ago
  >it matters if browsers trust them (which they do). We had endless problems with StartSSL on mobile browsers. They have only recently been added to the latest Windows Mobile 8 repo and you can forget about any phone OS (except iOS) that was released before 2012. The thing with SSL providers is most people think if it works on Chrome and IE they're set, but for certain businesses they need something that will work on the Wii Browser, an IBM Power System, or an older dumbphone. SmartTV's in particular are pretty annoying to get any CA list because whoever implemented the browser portion on the devices probably just imported some random Java lib from circa 2002. If you are doing something small and personal, StartCom is just fine. If you're running a business, at some point it may become inevitable that you switch to oldest provider you can reasonably sign up for, in particular one of the Original Three (Thawte, GlobalSign, or Verisign). If you're running a non-profit advocating for privacy and cryptography where a large number of your users may be based in the middle east running on legacy hardware, you may want to take a cursory look to see if your users are getting any cert problems and get a cert from Thawte (the cheapest of the three - though you will need to chain to an intermediary cert if you got with their 123 option).
olefoo 13y ago
Just because you're paranoid... And to further your paranoia, the NSA and Israeli intelligence orgs have form on doing each others dirty work. But what that really points out is the brokenness at the heart of the PKI system as it's currently implemented. When was the last time you audited your browsers trust store?

by zmmmmm 13y ago

lem72 13y ago

This is my thoughts exactly.... Cue Conspiracy Theory

gsnedders 13y ago

And how do they guarantee identity for zero cost to them? To actually meet all the CA requirements to be a default trusted root isn't easy.

bigiain 13y ago
Like all inexpensive ssl certs, the only guarantee of identity is "domain validation" -if you can read mail going to webmaster@, hostmaster@, Postmaster@, or the email address in a Whois lookup for the domain in question, they'll provide you with a signed key for that domain. There are higher levels of validation - "business validation" usually involves faxing someone copies of various government supplied paperwork and receiving phone calls on publicly available phone numbers (which is just "outsourcing the identity guarantee" to yellow pages or Dun and Bradstreet.) "EV" validation ( for "green address bar as well as padlock icon" security requires all that plus spending lots of money.

lwf 13y ago

With StartCom, you just send them a CSR and they sign it. They don't get access to your key. StartCom passed an outside audit and is included in most modern browsers by default, indicating that they at least trust StartCom. They charge for the work they have to do. So, EV and identity validation cost money. Most "domain validated" certs are basically no work, as you can see from the incredibly cheap prices other SSL vendors offer them at.

makomk 13y ago
Actually, the default is for StartCom to generate your private key for you. They do let you generate your own private key and just upload the CSR though.

zobzu 13y ago

making certs doesn't take money. verifying you own the domain (lowest level cert) doesnt take money. all this is fully automated, everywhere. Being an SSL provider is a juicy business once you get things rolling. Now then again, it dosn't matter if you trust them or not, because your browser trust them for you. using another provider will not make you have a better trust in the sites you browse. Any of the providers can compromise everyone elses trust, as long as they're trusted by the browser. And thats why the current SSL trust scheme sucks, by the way.

zobzu 13y ago
(note: in chrome this is not 100% true, some certs are pinned by having their trust hardcoded. its a very small list, require browser update, and of course, you're still trusting a large CA anyway)

micahflee 13y ago

It doesn't particularly matter if people trust StartSSL, it matters if browsers trust them (which they do). There are about 100 root CAs, and something like 1000 CAs if you include intermediates (controlled by ~650 different organizations - https://www.eff.org/observatory https://www.eff.org/observatory), and browsers trust ALL of them. All it takes is one to issue a malicious cert, or to get hacked, to do a MITM attack on ANY domain without showing a browser warning. The trustworthyness of a single CA doesn't make a difference, because if any CA isn't trustworthy then an attacker can use them instead the other ones. This is the problem with CAs, and the problem with centralized trust systems in general. There are hundreds of weak points. But also, StartSSL does fairly thorough identity verification. I've had to send them photos of my passport and talk to them on the phone to do identity verification. It's also worth noting that it's the CA that both https://www.eff.org/ https://www.eff.org/ and https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/ https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/ use. As long as there's a broken CA system, the choice of CA does not matter in the slightest as long as it's trusted by browsers. Users only care if it breaks a website with a scary warning, but if it doesn't, it doesn't matter. There's no need to spend money. StartSSL does charge if you have more than very basic needs, like if you want multiple alt names, or if you want a wildcard. But it's still cheaper than the competition.

paulgerhardt 13y ago
>it matters if browsers trust them (which they do). We had endless problems with StartSSL on mobile browsers. They have only recently been added to the latest Windows Mobile 8 repo and you can forget about any phone OS (except iOS) that was released before 2012. The thing with SSL providers is most people think if it works on Chrome and IE they're set, but for certain businesses they need something that will work on the Wii Browser, an IBM Power System, or an older dumbphone. SmartTV's in particular are pretty annoying to get any CA list because whoever implemented the browser portion on the devices probably just imported some random Java lib from circa 2002. If you are doing something small and personal, StartCom is just fine. If you're running a business, at some point it may become inevitable that you switch to oldest provider you can reasonably sign up for, in particular one of the Original Three (Thawte, GlobalSign, or Verisign). If you're running a non-profit advocating for privacy and cryptography where a large number of your users may be based in the middle east running on legacy hardware, you may want to take a cursory look to see if your users are getting any cert problems and get a cert from Thawte (the cheapest of the three - though you will need to chain to an intermediary cert if you got with their 123 option).

olefoo 13y ago

Just because you're paranoid... And to further your paranoia, the NSA and Israeli intelligence orgs have form on doing each others dirty work. But what that really points out is the brokenness at the heart of the PKI system as it's currently implemented. When was the last time you audited your browsers trust store?