8 ms·

Feels a bit silly to complain about a free certificate from the CA which probably helped a lot of people to even think about using SSL on their site and if I'm

by dewey 13y ago

Feels a bit silly to complain about a free certificate from the CA which probably helped a lot of people to even think about using SSL on their site and if I'm not mistaken it's just 25$ to get a new one. That's even cheaper than getting one from Comodo/etc. They always said that revoking a certificate is not free, that's what you signed up for.

tptacek 13y ago
It's a silly complaint. It's also the inevitable result of offering something useful at a "free" price point: it attracts pathological customers --- for instance, the ones who will attempt to organize informal boycotts against you when something about that free offering turns out not to be to their liking.
- lisper 13y ago
  The problem with this analysis, as with most libertarian analyses, is that it ignores externalities. The security of x.509 is a cooperative endeavor. The continued existence of compromised certificates from any CA undermines the security of the entire internet because you can no longer trust the browser padlock icon. So while it is certainly arguable that Start could justifiably refuse to provide a service for customers who have never paid, it is a much harder case to make that Start is justified in undermining the security of the internet because it chose (wisely or unwisely) to provide certificates for free.
  - Joeboy 13y ago
    > The continued existence of compromised certificates from any CA undermines the security of the entire internet because you can no longer trust the browser padlock icon. True, but my guess is that StartCom doing free revocations / reissues would only make a tiny dent in that situation. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/04/11/heartbleed-certificate-revocation-tsunami-yet-to-arrive.html http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/04/11/heartbleed-cert...
    - lisper 13y ago
      That may be, but it's beside the point. Given that we have a situation where the continued viability of the internet depends on everyone rowing in the same direction, the argument that Start has no responsibility in this case because "you get what you pay for" should not carry the day.
      - tptacek 13y ago
        The viability of the Internet in no way depends on Start's actions here. Certificate revocation is not in fact a giant "everyone row the same direction" coordinated effort to save the Internet. It's closer to theater than it is to triage.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    It's not an externality of Start's business. They were up-front with their clients: revocation carries a handling fee. The externality you're referring to was caused by the users of StartSSL, who deliberately opted to pay nothing for SSL certificates that didn't have free revocation. (Certificate revocation simply doesn't work regardless, but let's stipulate here that it does).
    - lisper 13y ago
      > They were up-front with their clients That assumes that all their clients were paying attention. That is almost certainly not the case. It is arguable where the responsibility lies in a case like this, but there is a case to be made that Start carries at least some of the responsibility for having created an environment where such a critical item was so easy to miss. I am not saying that Start is in fact the villain it is being made out to be, only that the "you get what you pay for" argument should not be the last word.
      - tptacek 13y ago
        You can't see them, but my eyebrows are raised. Start is famous for providing free SSL certificates; in fact, that may be all they're famous for. Virtually all other certificates cost money. What you're suggesting is that it wouldn't be the first question any reasonable person would have had, "what are the limitations of this free SSL certificate"? I also find the notion that people would have gone elsewhere for their certificates had they only known Start's were irrevocable a bit dubious. More than a bit; "laughable" is perhaps a better word. From out here on the limb I'm standing on, I'll suggest that you probably (and quietly) agree.
        lisper 13y ago
        This disagreement has spread into multiple branches of this thread. I'm going to try to consolidate all of my responses here to keep things from spinning too wildly out of control. > I'll suggest that you probably (and quietly) agree. I agree with most of the literal text of what you have written, but you still continue to ignore the salient fact that this is an unprecedented situation. The continued existence of large numbers of potentially compromised certificates undermines the entirety of X.509 because you can no longer trust the green padlock. The more un-revoked certificates exist in the wild, the less you can trust the entirety of X.509. Under normal circumstances this wouldn't matter because the number of certificates that get compromised in the normal course of events is small, so the risk of encountering a compromised but un-revoked certificate is small. But in the current situation that is not the case. Vast numbers of private keys are potentially compromised with no way to know, and until something is done about that, the entirety of x.509 is undermined. Cert revocation is far from an ideal solution, but it's better than nothing. At least it offers the possibility of rejecting potentially compromised certs. In the face of this unprecedented situation, Start's refusal to make any kind of contribution towards mitigation cannot be defended simply by saying that their users should have read the TOS more carefully because those users are not the ones who are being hurt. Everyone who relies on x.509 is being hurt (hence, externality). Start is in a position to make a major contribution towards the mitigation of this problem and the restoration of trust in x.509, and they are refusing to do so. They are entirely within their rights. But it is also not unreasonable to criticize them for choosing not to contribute to the common good.
  - dfc 13y ago
    I am curious why/how you concluded this was a libertarian analysis? Do you and tptacek have a history that gave you additional context to what he wrote? When I read it I did not see anything that screamed libertarian.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      I'm not a libertarian. Rather the opposite (a mainstream down-the-line progressive liberal).
      - lisper 13y ago
        I didn't know whether he was a libertarian or not, but ignoring externalities is a hallmark of libertarian thought. I apologize if I made an unwarranted assumption. But the substance of my comment applies regardless.
        tptacek 13y ago
        The substance of your argument is that, having provided a free "no commercial use" SSL certificate that explicitly requires a $40 handling fee for revocation, Start has somehow assumed some obligation on the part of the users that opted into this scheme, and that their users' reticence in forking out money for revocation is an externality created by Start. I don't find that argument credible.
guan 13y ago
The $24.90 fee also applies to paying Class 2 customers. Only EV certificates get free revocation from StartCom. My own personal blog (not very critical) has a Class 2 certificate, and I decided to switch to a Comodo PositiveSSL ($5/year for 5 years) and not revoke the StartSSL one.
- pezz 13y ago
  Exactly what I did. I mean, damn people who use a free thing that then get screwed, through no fault of their own, not wanting to be charged $25 for a part of the service that they would never need to use otherwise. You're either free, or you're not -- StartSSL is a mish-mash of "free" and opportunistic costs.
  - guan 13y ago
    I think some people are exaggerating how aware Class 1 customers were of the revocation policy. It’s in the FAQ, but the site also advertises “100% Free”. I think the expectation is that free services have automated infrastructure, and that they’re a way to advertise your paid services—and I did, in fact, start out as a Class 1 and later paid for Class 2.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  I don't see where it said $5/year. Right now it costs $50 per year. EDIT: Are resellers like them more trustworthy? I understand that big CA often sells out to smaller CA and smaller CA sell out to even smaller CA. But how trustworthy are ssls.com and namecheap? EDIT Okay. I see. namecheap has been running since 2001 which means it has been doing business pretty well :) So why are they cheaper? Because namecheap are the one managing all the accounts and Comondo is only doing validation?
  - jgillich 13y ago
    It's a lot cheaper when you buy it through resellers (like NameCheap).
    - deleted 13y ago
Joeboy 13y ago
The article is down for me, but: From a POV of fairness to StartCom, I agree with you, and initially saw it as a ridiculous sense of entitlement on the part of their (non-paying) customers. However as a third party user of the web I am somewhat persuaded by the simple argument that the certs should be distrusted on the basis that they are no longer trustworthy. Edit: Having thought about it for a minute, a logical consequence of my argument is that all certificates signed by CAs that charge a revocation or reissue fee should be distrusted, which probably makes it not a very reasonable argument. I guess this just leaves us at "Valid SSL certificates are not necessarily trustworthy and we just have to live with that". Edit2: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/04/11/heartbleed-certificate-revocation-tsunami-yet-to-arrive.html http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/04/11/heartbleed-cert...
- revelation 13y ago
  I have no problem with them asking for money to issue a new certificate, but revoking the old one when it is compromised is an obligation they took on when selling (or giving it away) in the first place. An obligation to Mozilla and others that have put them in their trust store if I may add. It is the same reason we have mandatory recycling provisions. Just because your shit is free doesn't mean we have to sit by and watch you pollute the world.
  - Joeboy 13y ago
    Hm, by that argument I guess they (and all other CAs) should just revoke all of the ones on servers that are/were vulnerable without user intervention. I can't imagine that would make them any more popular, although it probably would be the right thing to do.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- raimue 13y ago
  Sorry for the downtime. I did not expect this to be that popular.
zimbatm 13y ago
It's a marketing issue. StartSSL can make free certificates because the entire system is automated (until you require Level 2 certificates) so the cost of operation is very low. My guess is that the revocation is not entirely automated. There might also be reasons other than technical why it's not the case. In any case, if they explained the reasons it would put some perspective on their point of view and help people understand.
drdaeman 13y ago
> just 25$ to get a new one Due to $0 price of certificate I guess many had considered it would be a good idea to have a certificate per service, i.e. a separate one for HTTPS, email, XMPP and so on. I did. The overall thought was that if one service would be compromised, others would likely remain safe - but Heartbleed had completely changed the story. In my case if I'd revoke all the certificate it would be about $600. Call me names if you want to, but I'm not going to shell out that much. Guess, many others would think the same. I've updated OpenSSL but if any certs were compromised, they would stay so until they would naturally expire.

by dewey 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago

It's a silly complaint. It's also the inevitable result of offering something useful at a "free" price point: it attracts pathological customers --- for instance, the ones who will attempt to organize informal boycotts against you when something about that free offering turns out not to be to their liking.

lisper 13y ago
The problem with this analysis, as with most libertarian analyses, is that it ignores externalities. The security of x.509 is a cooperative endeavor. The continued existence of compromised certificates from any CA undermines the security of the entire internet because you can no longer trust the browser padlock icon. So while it is certainly arguable that Start could justifiably refuse to provide a service for customers who have never paid, it is a much harder case to make that Start is justified in undermining the security of the internet because it chose (wisely or unwisely) to provide certificates for free.
- Joeboy 13y ago
  > The continued existence of compromised certificates from any CA undermines the security of the entire internet because you can no longer trust the browser padlock icon. True, but my guess is that StartCom doing free revocations / reissues would only make a tiny dent in that situation. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/04/11/heartbleed-certificate-revocation-tsunami-yet-to-arrive.html http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/04/11/heartbleed-cert...
  - lisper 13y ago
    That may be, but it's beside the point. Given that we have a situation where the continued viability of the internet depends on everyone rowing in the same direction, the argument that Start has no responsibility in this case because "you get what you pay for" should not carry the day.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      The viability of the Internet in no way depends on Start's actions here. Certificate revocation is not in fact a giant "everyone row the same direction" coordinated effort to save the Internet. It's closer to theater than it is to triage.
- tptacek 13y ago
  It's not an externality of Start's business. They were up-front with their clients: revocation carries a handling fee. The externality you're referring to was caused by the users of StartSSL, who deliberately opted to pay nothing for SSL certificates that didn't have free revocation. (Certificate revocation simply doesn't work regardless, but let's stipulate here that it does).
  - lisper 13y ago
    > They were up-front with their clients That assumes that all their clients were paying attention. That is almost certainly not the case. It is arguable where the responsibility lies in a case like this, but there is a case to be made that Start carries at least some of the responsibility for having created an environment where such a critical item was so easy to miss. I am not saying that Start is in fact the villain it is being made out to be, only that the "you get what you pay for" argument should not be the last word.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      You can't see them, but my eyebrows are raised. Start is famous for providing free SSL certificates; in fact, that may be all they're famous for. Virtually all other certificates cost money. What you're suggesting is that it wouldn't be the first question any reasonable person would have had, "what are the limitations of this free SSL certificate"? I also find the notion that people would have gone elsewhere for their certificates had they only known Start's were irrevocable a bit dubious. More than a bit; "laughable" is perhaps a better word. From out here on the limb I'm standing on, I'll suggest that you probably (and quietly) agree.
      - lisper 13y ago
        This disagreement has spread into multiple branches of this thread. I'm going to try to consolidate all of my responses here to keep things from spinning too wildly out of control. > I'll suggest that you probably (and quietly) agree. I agree with most of the literal text of what you have written, but you still continue to ignore the salient fact that this is an unprecedented situation. The continued existence of large numbers of potentially compromised certificates undermines the entirety of X.509 because you can no longer trust the green padlock. The more un-revoked certificates exist in the wild, the less you can trust the entirety of X.509. Under normal circumstances this wouldn't matter because the number of certificates that get compromised in the normal course of events is small, so the risk of encountering a compromised but un-revoked certificate is small. But in the current situation that is not the case. Vast numbers of private keys are potentially compromised with no way to know, and until something is done about that, the entirety of x.509 is undermined. Cert revocation is far from an ideal solution, but it's better than nothing. At least it offers the possibility of rejecting potentially compromised certs. In the face of this unprecedented situation, Start's refusal to make any kind of contribution towards mitigation cannot be defended simply by saying that their users should have read the TOS more carefully because those users are not the ones who are being hurt. Everyone who relies on x.509 is being hurt (hence, externality). Start is in a position to make a major contribution towards the mitigation of this problem and the restoration of trust in x.509, and they are refusing to do so. They are entirely within their rights. But it is also not unreasonable to criticize them for choosing not to contribute to the common good.
- dfc 13y ago
  I am curious why/how you concluded this was a libertarian analysis? Do you and tptacek have a history that gave you additional context to what he wrote? When I read it I did not see anything that screamed libertarian.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    I'm not a libertarian. Rather the opposite (a mainstream down-the-line progressive liberal).
    - lisper 13y ago
      I didn't know whether he was a libertarian or not, but ignoring externalities is a hallmark of libertarian thought. I apologize if I made an unwarranted assumption. But the substance of my comment applies regardless.
      - tptacek 13y ago
        The substance of your argument is that, having provided a free "no commercial use" SSL certificate that explicitly requires a $40 handling fee for revocation, Start has somehow assumed some obligation on the part of the users that opted into this scheme, and that their users' reticence in forking out money for revocation is an externality created by Start. I don't find that argument credible.

guan 13y ago

The $24.90 fee also applies to paying Class 2 customers. Only EV certificates get free revocation from StartCom. My own personal blog (not very critical) has a Class 2 certificate, and I decided to switch to a Comodo PositiveSSL ($5/year for 5 years) and not revoke the StartSSL one.

pezz 13y ago
Exactly what I did. I mean, damn people who use a free thing that then get screwed, through no fault of their own, not wanting to be charged $25 for a part of the service that they would never need to use otherwise. You're either free, or you're not -- StartSSL is a mish-mash of "free" and opportunistic costs.
- guan 13y ago
  I think some people are exaggerating how aware Class 1 customers were of the revocation policy. It’s in the FAQ, but the site also advertises “100% Free”. I think the expectation is that free services have automated infrastructure, and that they’re a way to advertise your paid services—and I did, in fact, start out as a Class 1 and later paid for Class 2.
yeukhon 13y ago
I don't see where it said $5/year. Right now it costs $50 per year. EDIT: Are resellers like them more trustworthy? I understand that big CA often sells out to smaller CA and smaller CA sell out to even smaller CA. But how trustworthy are ssls.com and namecheap? EDIT Okay. I see. namecheap has been running since 2001 which means it has been doing business pretty well :) So why are they cheaper? Because namecheap are the one managing all the accounts and Comondo is only doing validation?
- jgillich 13y ago
  It's a lot cheaper when you buy it through resellers (like NameCheap).
  - deleted 13y ago

Joeboy 13y ago

The article is down for me, but: From a POV of fairness to StartCom, I agree with you, and initially saw it as a ridiculous sense of entitlement on the part of their (non-paying) customers. However as a third party user of the web I am somewhat persuaded by the simple argument that the certs should be distrusted on the basis that they are no longer trustworthy. Edit: Having thought about it for a minute, a logical consequence of my argument is that all certificates signed by CAs that charge a revocation or reissue fee should be distrusted, which probably makes it not a very reasonable argument. I guess this just leaves us at "Valid SSL certificates are not necessarily trustworthy and we just have to live with that". Edit2: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/04/11/heartbleed-certificate-revocation-tsunami-yet-to-arrive.html http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/04/11/heartbleed-cert...

revelation 13y ago
I have no problem with them asking for money to issue a new certificate, but revoking the old one when it is compromised is an obligation they took on when selling (or giving it away) in the first place. An obligation to Mozilla and others that have put them in their trust store if I may add. It is the same reason we have mandatory recycling provisions. Just because your shit is free doesn't mean we have to sit by and watch you pollute the world.
- Joeboy 13y ago
  Hm, by that argument I guess they (and all other CAs) should just revoke all of the ones on servers that are/were vulnerable without user intervention. I can't imagine that would make them any more popular, although it probably would be the right thing to do.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
raimue 13y ago
Sorry for the downtime. I did not expect this to be that popular.

zimbatm 13y ago

It's a marketing issue. StartSSL can make free certificates because the entire system is automated (until you require Level 2 certificates) so the cost of operation is very low. My guess is that the revocation is not entirely automated. There might also be reasons other than technical why it's not the case. In any case, if they explained the reasons it would put some perspective on their point of view and help people understand.

drdaeman 13y ago

> just 25$ to get a new one Due to $0 price of certificate I guess many had considered it would be a good idea to have a certificate per service, i.e. a separate one for HTTPS, email, XMPP and so on. I did. The overall thought was that if one service would be compromised, others would likely remain safe - but Heartbleed had completely changed the story. In my case if I'd revoke all the certificate it would be about $600. Call me names if you want to, but I'm not going to shell out that much. Guess, many others would think the same. I've updated OpenSSL but if any certs were compromised, they would stay so until they would naturally expire.