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You said "There is no practical improvement here.". If CloudFlare has not done something wrong, then why did you say that? Before you answer that question, re

You said "There is no practical improvement here.". If CloudFlare has not done something wrong, then why did you say that? Before you answer that question, remember: A hypothetical solution is not a practical solution. A practical solution is always a practical improvement over the case where there was no existing practical solution offered. And before you say "They should have used HSMs", remember: CloudFlare has made it clear that HSMs being under their control was simply not an option. It was clear in their first blog post, and just for good measure, it was made absolutely explicit in an interview with Ars[0] where CloudFlare's CEO said "there’s no vault we can ever build that they’ll trust us with their SSL keys". So, how is there no practical improvement? [0] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/09/in-depth-how-cloudflares-new-web-service-promises-security-without-the-key/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/09/in-dep...

xorcist 12y ago
That was in response to: "It is a huge improvement. Nobody can impersonate the bank without the bank's cooperation." And that is not true. The alternative is not to let other organizations impersonate you without your cooperation. That is very clear from the article. Storing plaintext keys with Cloudflare was never on the table. That's not why they built it. There reasons to why Cloudflare built their own, probably good ones because Cloudflare employs some talented people, and I would think they have to do with the scale Cloudflare operates at. Network attached HSMs are off the shelf devices. If you've worked with PKI, you've seen them. And that is what they would have went with if they hadn't built this. If it was right or wrong to go with a home-grown HSM instead of an off the shelf one is not something I could possibly know -- but I know it's not a "huge improvement in security" to build your own. The fact that is offers comparable security is probably why the bank chose it. If there is one thing to take away from the article, it should be: Don't invent your own security protocols. Buy off the shelf devices. If you really need to build your own, this is how.

xorcist 12y ago

That was in response to: "It is a huge improvement. Nobody can impersonate the bank without the bank's cooperation." And that is not true. The alternative is not to let other organizations impersonate you without your cooperation. That is very clear from the article. Storing plaintext keys with Cloudflare was never on the table. That's not why they built it. There reasons to why Cloudflare built their own, probably good ones because Cloudflare employs some talented people, and I would think they have to do with the scale Cloudflare operates at. Network attached HSMs are off the shelf devices. If you've worked with PKI, you've seen them. And that is what they would have went with if they hadn't built this. If it was right or wrong to go with a home-grown HSM instead of an off the shelf one is not something I could possibly know -- but I know it's not a "huge improvement in security" to build your own. The fact that is offers comparable security is probably why the bank chose it. If there is one thing to take away from the article, it should be: Don't invent your own security protocols. Buy off the shelf devices. If you really need to build your own, this is how.