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I'm getting a certificate warning on Chrome 33.0.1750.152. Is there a security corollary to Muphry's law?[1] [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law ht

I'm getting a certificate warning on Chrome 33.0.1750.152. Is there a security corollary to Muphry's law?[1] [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law

plus 13y ago
The cert is self-signed, that's why Chrome gives the warning.
- geekam 13y ago
  Firefox gives the same warning.
  - plus 13y ago
    Yes, well, I expect most browsers would warn on self-signed SSL certs.
a3_nm 13y ago
This might be intended. Supporting SSL is better than not supporting it (well, except in situations where an OpenSSL bug could leak your server's memory, but that's a bit of a stretch <http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/#www.peereboom.us> http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/#www.peereboom.us> -- but put this aside), because it's always better to encrypt traffic even in a way vulnerable to passive attacks; and some people may reasonably opt-out of the SSL CA business because they do not like the way it is structured, doubt the security it offers, or feel that they do not need it. (I use a free StartSSL signed certificate, but only because it's free and not very hard to get. If there were no free provider with widespread support, I would be very happy to use a self-signed cert and think of it as a protest against the stupidity of browsers which present SSL+self-signed as less secure than plain HTTP).
- nknighthb 13y ago
  If someone has passive access to snoop, the odds they can perpetrate an active attack are so close to 100% as to make the distinction immaterial. Encryption without authentication accomplishes nothing. Worse, self-signed certificates train users to freely click through certificate warnings. People running servers with self-signed certificates are actively reducing what security we have available for the web. If we ever do get anything better than the existing CA structure, it won't do us any good if users have been trained to ignore browser security warnings anyway.
  - devinj 13y ago
    Can you MITM public wifi? Real question, but I thought the answer was "no", which would make public wifi a compelling counter-example.
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      I have no idea where you'd get the idea that the answer is "no". The answer is emphatically yes.
    - syshax 13y ago
      Yes. You arp poison the default gateway and route traffic through your own host instead.
      - caf 13y ago
        Or spoof DNS responses to point to a machine under your control.
        sp332 13y ago
        Or spoof a disassociation frame, then impersonate the access point so the victim connects to your computer instead.
  - antientropic 13y ago
    I guess you don't agree with Poul-Henning Kamp in his FOSDEM keynote this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcl17Q0bpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcl17Q0bpk (around 15:00) His claim is that browsers treating websites with self-signed certificates as less secure than non-encrypted websites by displaying big fat warnings is just about the greatest gift we can give to organisations like the NSA. It's not true that there is no material distinction between an active attack and passive eavesdropping. For the NSA to do active MITM attacks on all self-signed https traffic (in a world where all unencrypted http is replaced with self-signed https) would take massively more resources than passively monitoring unencrypted traffic. Plus the odds of them getting caught would be very high (since some people are going to notice that the certificate that shows up on the client is not what the server sent).
- rodgerd 13y ago
  I'd trusts self-signed certs ahead of most CAs, frankly.
  - cortesoft 13y ago
    That doesn't make any sense.... even if you don't trust a CA at all, it is impossible for a self-signed cert to be MORE trustworthy, since it provides absolutely ZERO authentication. It could be created by anyone at all, including on the fly by a MITM.
    - arg01 13y ago
      Maybe he is saying by removing trusted root certificates he will trade the possibility of receiving a fraudulent certificate the first time he uses a site for the possibility of not being warned if a certificate changes because the trusted roots are compromised. If he needs to worry about state actors there is an argument to be made for this trade-off, but really if he was worried about that he would be delivering certificates out of band and not visiting any unknown websites on the machine he needed that level of security on. (Maybe justifiable against mass surveillance where you're a general target rather than a specific one).
      - cortesoft 13y ago
        Yes, verifying certs out-of-band is most likely more secure than a CA. I was not counting that in the self-signed cert vs CA signed cert comparison, since that is not what most people mean when they talk about a self-signed cert.
        arg01 13y ago
        You ignored my first point. You can trust the self signed certificate to be used by the same entity(A or C) after the first connection, admittedly you may have been MITM (by C) for that first time(and renewal times) and because of that you may be screwed. Alternatively if you are trusting other entities(B) to verify the certificate of A while B are not trustworthy then after that first communication (even if that first communication was legitimate) another entity (C) can pretend to be A and so long as B verifies C then you are in trouble. I am pointing out that they are different risks and I agree that in nearly all use cases it is better to use verified certificates than self-signed for general internet use, that doesn't mean that there isn't a reason to do otherwise though.
- lawl 13y ago
  I use(d) free StartSSL for my hobby projects too. So I wanted to revoke my certificates today, post heartbleed and stuff. They charge $25 to do the right thing and revoke your cert. So I will not use them again. Edit: Btw. That's per fucking subdomain, as you don't get wildcard certs for free. Going back to self signed I guess...
  - amatix 13y ago
    I put the CVE id in my "reason" and it went through with no charge.
    - lawl 13y ago
      Gotta try that after i catched some sleep. Got no reply from them on twitter. I'd expect them to an annouce this officialy though.
      - hrrsn 13y ago
        They've been tweeting saying they aren't revoking them for free.
    - pritambaral 13y ago
      I just tried it. They mailed me asking for credit card / paypal details. Are you sure they didn't just bill a payment method you previously added?
samstave 13y ago
I have been using the following phrase a lot lately: Schrodingers-Murphy's-Law: "When you look at it, it breaks!" I joined this company in January and had to peel back all the layers of hte onion to find out where its weaknesses were, and as soon as we start looking at how a component of the system is built and how it works - it breaks. We learn a ton real fast and figure out how to make it resilient. Yesterday in my Ops Stand-up I told my staff: We have come a long way in rebuilding the infra; I am now paranoid that a security vulnerability will be the next thing that causes an outage... Lucky, our ELBs on AWS were all updated without issue...
raverbashing 13y ago
Those with glass ceilings shouldn't throw stones I'm not visiting something criticizing OpenSSL if they can't get basic security right. And I've had with the "encryption without checking certificates provides an illusion of security" people, so yes, I won't visit the site.
- kyllo 13y ago
  Calm down, it's a static HTML page without any forms in it. There is no reason why it needs to be encrypted anyway.

I'm getting a certificate warning on Chrome 33.0.1750.152. Is there a security corollary to Muphry's law?[1] [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law

plus 13y ago

The cert is self-signed, that's why Chrome gives the warning.

geekam 13y ago
Firefox gives the same warning.
- plus 13y ago
  Yes, well, I expect most browsers would warn on self-signed SSL certs.

a3_nm 13y ago

This might be intended. Supporting SSL is better than not supporting it (well, except in situations where an OpenSSL bug could leak your server's memory, but that's a bit of a stretch <http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/#www.peereboom.us> http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/#www.peereboom.us> -- but put this aside), because it's always better to encrypt traffic even in a way vulnerable to passive attacks; and some people may reasonably opt-out of the SSL CA business because they do not like the way it is structured, doubt the security it offers, or feel that they do not need it. (I use a free StartSSL signed certificate, but only because it's free and not very hard to get. If there were no free provider with widespread support, I would be very happy to use a self-signed cert and think of it as a protest against the stupidity of browsers which present SSL+self-signed as less secure than plain HTTP).

nknighthb 13y ago
If someone has passive access to snoop, the odds they can perpetrate an active attack are so close to 100% as to make the distinction immaterial. Encryption without authentication accomplishes nothing. Worse, self-signed certificates train users to freely click through certificate warnings. People running servers with self-signed certificates are actively reducing what security we have available for the web. If we ever do get anything better than the existing CA structure, it won't do us any good if users have been trained to ignore browser security warnings anyway.
- devinj 13y ago
  Can you MITM public wifi? Real question, but I thought the answer was "no", which would make public wifi a compelling counter-example.
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    I have no idea where you'd get the idea that the answer is "no". The answer is emphatically yes.
  - syshax 13y ago
    Yes. You arp poison the default gateway and route traffic through your own host instead.
    - caf 13y ago
      Or spoof DNS responses to point to a machine under your control.
      - sp332 13y ago
        Or spoof a disassociation frame, then impersonate the access point so the victim connects to your computer instead.
- antientropic 13y ago
  I guess you don't agree with Poul-Henning Kamp in his FOSDEM keynote this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcl17Q0bpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcl17Q0bpk (around 15:00) His claim is that browsers treating websites with self-signed certificates as less secure than non-encrypted websites by displaying big fat warnings is just about the greatest gift we can give to organisations like the NSA. It's not true that there is no material distinction between an active attack and passive eavesdropping. For the NSA to do active MITM attacks on all self-signed https traffic (in a world where all unencrypted http is replaced with self-signed https) would take massively more resources than passively monitoring unencrypted traffic. Plus the odds of them getting caught would be very high (since some people are going to notice that the certificate that shows up on the client is not what the server sent).
rodgerd 13y ago
I'd trusts self-signed certs ahead of most CAs, frankly.
- cortesoft 13y ago
  That doesn't make any sense.... even if you don't trust a CA at all, it is impossible for a self-signed cert to be MORE trustworthy, since it provides absolutely ZERO authentication. It could be created by anyone at all, including on the fly by a MITM.
  - arg01 13y ago
    Maybe he is saying by removing trusted root certificates he will trade the possibility of receiving a fraudulent certificate the first time he uses a site for the possibility of not being warned if a certificate changes because the trusted roots are compromised. If he needs to worry about state actors there is an argument to be made for this trade-off, but really if he was worried about that he would be delivering certificates out of band and not visiting any unknown websites on the machine he needed that level of security on. (Maybe justifiable against mass surveillance where you're a general target rather than a specific one).
    - cortesoft 13y ago
      Yes, verifying certs out-of-band is most likely more secure than a CA. I was not counting that in the self-signed cert vs CA signed cert comparison, since that is not what most people mean when they talk about a self-signed cert.
      - arg01 13y ago
        You ignored my first point. You can trust the self signed certificate to be used by the same entity(A or C) after the first connection, admittedly you may have been MITM (by C) for that first time(and renewal times) and because of that you may be screwed. Alternatively if you are trusting other entities(B) to verify the certificate of A while B are not trustworthy then after that first communication (even if that first communication was legitimate) another entity (C) can pretend to be A and so long as B verifies C then you are in trouble. I am pointing out that they are different risks and I agree that in nearly all use cases it is better to use verified certificates than self-signed for general internet use, that doesn't mean that there isn't a reason to do otherwise though.
lawl 13y ago
I use(d) free StartSSL for my hobby projects too. So I wanted to revoke my certificates today, post heartbleed and stuff. They charge $25 to do the right thing and revoke your cert. So I will not use them again. Edit: Btw. That's per fucking subdomain, as you don't get wildcard certs for free. Going back to self signed I guess...
- amatix 13y ago
  I put the CVE id in my "reason" and it went through with no charge.
  - lawl 13y ago
    Gotta try that after i catched some sleep. Got no reply from them on twitter. I'd expect them to an annouce this officialy though.
    - hrrsn 13y ago
      They've been tweeting saying they aren't revoking them for free.
  - pritambaral 13y ago
    I just tried it. They mailed me asking for credit card / paypal details. Are you sure they didn't just bill a payment method you previously added?

samstave 13y ago

I have been using the following phrase a lot lately: Schrodingers-Murphy's-Law: "When you look at it, it breaks!" I joined this company in January and had to peel back all the layers of hte onion to find out where its weaknesses were, and as soon as we start looking at how a component of the system is built and how it works - it breaks. We learn a ton real fast and figure out how to make it resilient. Yesterday in my Ops Stand-up I told my staff: We have come a long way in rebuilding the infra; I am now paranoid that a security vulnerability will be the next thing that causes an outage... Lucky, our ELBs on AWS were all updated without issue...

raverbashing 13y ago

Those with glass ceilings shouldn't throw stones I'm not visiting something criticizing OpenSSL if they can't get basic security right. And I've had with the "encryption without checking certificates provides an illusion of security" people, so yes, I won't visit the site.

kyllo 13y ago
Calm down, it's a static HTML page without any forms in it. There is no reason why it needs to be encrypted anyway.