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I don't understand why they don't just use different colors for self-signed SSL connections. CA-signed: Green lockpad Self-signed: Yellow lockpad, with questi
by chimeracoder 12y ago
I don't understand why they don't just use different colors for self-signed SSL connections.
CA-signed: Green lockpad
Self-signed: Yellow lockpad, with question mark superimposed over it
Regular HTTP: Orange, no lockpad (insecure)
Invalid or revoked cert: Red, "stay away" displayed within <blink> tags.
The current UI that most browsers present implies that self-signed certificates are worse ("scarier") than regular HTTP, which is not true.
- mindslight 12y agoWell, it's not really a continuum. 'There should be only one mode, secure' and all that - asking users to make ad-hoc security assessments is generally a bad idea. In an ideal world, plaintext HTTP wouldn't exist and everyone would have a key delegated by their domain registrar. No lock would suffice for unauthenticated https; those that find the distinction meaningful can investigate the URL. But then you still risk someone bookmarking https://example.com https://example.com and suffering a downgrade attack from not paying attention to color changes. The best way forward is probably the creation of a new protocol designator (httpz or something) that is SSL using the SSH key model. But there's no impetus to do this as it's easy enough to pay the CA tax and be on your way with unquestioned "full security".
- 13throwaway 12y agoI think this is a good idea. It could be combined with a system similar to HSTS so banks could protect against MITM attacks.
- Spittie 12y agoI'd love to see something like SSH, you trust the self-signed certificate the first time, and then it's considered valid until it changes (but it should get treated differently from CA-signed certificates, your yellow padlock idea is great). Then warn the user if the certificate ever changes.