5 ms·

After learning how public key infrastructure really works, I've become quite disillusioned by the security it seems to provide. After all, what use is a certifi

After learning how public key infrastructure really works, I've become quite disillusioned by the security it seems to provide. After all, what use is a certification authority, if basically any authoritarian state and intelligence service can get on that list? In some countries the distinction between government officials, spies and organized crime is already extremely blurry...

stephen_g 12y ago
You can remove their CA certificates from your browser/OS and if you click the lock icon on your browser you can check what CA the website you're on was signed. You're right to say that the PKI doesn't work if you just want to trust any site that shows a padlock in the address bar, but it's useful if you do a little work.
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  I can't modify the CA lists of my users...
  - shawn-butler 12y ago
    Ship your own browser.
- darkarmani 12y ago
  > You're right to say that the PKI doesn't work if you just want to trust any site that shows a padlock in the address bar, but it's useful if you do a little work. Not it isn't. It still suffers from not respecting name constraints. You can't setup trust for only a list of domains. If i run my own CA for some list of domains, there is no way i can prevent my CA from being able to sign for google.com. Instead people use wildcard certs so they can be delegated responsibility for a subdomain.
  - mike_hearn 12y ago
    You can get a certificate for a fixed list of domains. If name constraints were implemented more widely, that'd be great. But someone has to write the code, debug it, ship it, etc, and then you have to wait until lots of people have upgraded, etc, and ultimately wildcard certs work well enough.
    - darkarmani 12y ago
      > If name constraints were implemented more widely, that'd be great. But someone has to write the code, debug it, ship it Without name constraints I assert the system is inherently broken. You cannot limit trust other than yes/no. > ultimately wildcard certs work well enough. Well enough is arguable. The problem is that your attack surface grows with each machine rather than having a private key per machine.
akerl_ 12y ago
That's a specific facet of the CA layout we've adopted for HTTPS; PKI as a whole does not require it. You need to trust something, but that something is often your own organization's CA (many VPNs) or the keys of people you've met (GPG) or the servers you've deployed (SSH, though SSH now supports use of CA keys).
cpach 12y ago
Yes, the CA model we have today is deeply problematic. But there are organizations such as Google that are trying to improve the current situation. See e.g. https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2668154 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2668154 about their Certificate Transparency project.
- boracay 12y ago
  Of course Google is only trying to improve the situation as long as it doesn't hurt their bottom line or government relations.
  - cpach 12y ago
    And...? Does that mean Certificate Transparency is a bad project?
  - parasubvert 12y ago
    In what situation would this be otherwise? "I'm going to do something that takes time and money and ultimately hurts me" - Masochists of America, unite under one CA? Even if Jesus Christ managed a certificate authority, someone would complain. Everyone - even G-d - has a conflict of interest.
    - cpach 12y ago
      Good points. And I’m quite sure that Google’s efforts in strong crypto/security has irritated lots of people in the US government.
      - boracay 12y ago
        I wouldn't be surprised if there's actually a fight inside Google over this.
        phkamp 12y ago
        There is. I have received emails that say so outright.
cubano 12y ago
In [most|all] countries the distinction between government officials, [corporations|financial institutions], spies and organized crime is already extremely blurry... FTFY.
mike_hearn 12y ago
After all, what use is a certification authority, if basically any authoritarian state and intelligence service can get on that list? Who says what an authoritarian state is? The reason there are a lot of CAs and some of them are governments is that having rules and policies for what it takes to be a CA is way better than having some random neckbeard at a browser maker deciding he read something in the newspaper yesterday about your country he didn't like, so you can't be a CA. If you wanted to, you could build a browser that's a fork of Firefox/Chrome, and just doesn't show the padlock when a CA that you believe is under the thumb of an authoritarian state is the signer. However you would then have to exclude all American and British CA's, which would then exclude most SSLd sites, thus making your fork not much different to just deciding to never show any padlock at all and assert that everything is insecure so fuck it, let's (not) go shopping. OK ..... back here in reality, real browser makers understand that there are more adversaries than governments, and actually SSL was designed to make online shopping safer, not be a tool of revolution. Judged by the "make shopping safer" standard it does a pretty great job. Judged by the "fight repressive regime and save the world" standard, it still does a surprisingly good job - the NSA doesn't seem to like it much at all - but it's unrealistic to expect an internet protocol designed in the mid 90s to do that.

stephen_g 12y ago

You can remove their CA certificates from your browser/OS and if you click the lock icon on your browser you can check what CA the website you're on was signed. You're right to say that the PKI doesn't work if you just want to trust any site that shows a padlock in the address bar, but it's useful if you do a little work.

bayesianhorse 12y ago
I can't modify the CA lists of my users...
- shawn-butler 12y ago
  Ship your own browser.
darkarmani 12y ago
> You're right to say that the PKI doesn't work if you just want to trust any site that shows a padlock in the address bar, but it's useful if you do a little work. Not it isn't. It still suffers from not respecting name constraints. You can't setup trust for only a list of domains. If i run my own CA for some list of domains, there is no way i can prevent my CA from being able to sign for google.com. Instead people use wildcard certs so they can be delegated responsibility for a subdomain.
- mike_hearn 12y ago
  You can get a certificate for a fixed list of domains. If name constraints were implemented more widely, that'd be great. But someone has to write the code, debug it, ship it, etc, and then you have to wait until lots of people have upgraded, etc, and ultimately wildcard certs work well enough.
  - darkarmani 12y ago
    > If name constraints were implemented more widely, that'd be great. But someone has to write the code, debug it, ship it Without name constraints I assert the system is inherently broken. You cannot limit trust other than yes/no. > ultimately wildcard certs work well enough. Well enough is arguable. The problem is that your attack surface grows with each machine rather than having a private key per machine.

akerl_ 12y ago

That's a specific facet of the CA layout we've adopted for HTTPS; PKI as a whole does not require it. You need to trust something, but that something is often your own organization's CA (many VPNs) or the keys of people you've met (GPG) or the servers you've deployed (SSH, though SSH now supports use of CA keys).

cpach 12y ago

Yes, the CA model we have today is deeply problematic. But there are organizations such as Google that are trying to improve the current situation. See e.g. https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2668154 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2668154 about their Certificate Transparency project.

boracay 12y ago
Of course Google is only trying to improve the situation as long as it doesn't hurt their bottom line or government relations.
- cpach 12y ago
  And...? Does that mean Certificate Transparency is a bad project?
- parasubvert 12y ago
  In what situation would this be otherwise? "I'm going to do something that takes time and money and ultimately hurts me" - Masochists of America, unite under one CA? Even if Jesus Christ managed a certificate authority, someone would complain. Everyone - even G-d - has a conflict of interest.
  - cpach 12y ago
    Good points. And I’m quite sure that Google’s efforts in strong crypto/security has irritated lots of people in the US government.
    - boracay 12y ago
      I wouldn't be surprised if there's actually a fight inside Google over this.
      - phkamp 12y ago
        There is. I have received emails that say so outright.

cubano 12y ago

In [most|all] countries the distinction between government officials, [corporations|financial institutions], spies and organized crime is already extremely blurry... FTFY.

mike_hearn 12y ago

After all, what use is a certification authority, if basically any authoritarian state and intelligence service can get on that list? Who says what an authoritarian state is? The reason there are a lot of CAs and some of them are governments is that having rules and policies for what it takes to be a CA is way better than having some random neckbeard at a browser maker deciding he read something in the newspaper yesterday about your country he didn't like, so you can't be a CA. If you wanted to, you could build a browser that's a fork of Firefox/Chrome, and just doesn't show the padlock when a CA that you believe is under the thumb of an authoritarian state is the signer. However you would then have to exclude all American and British CA's, which would then exclude most SSLd sites, thus making your fork not much different to just deciding to never show any padlock at all and assert that everything is insecure so fuck it, let's (not) go shopping. OK ..... back here in reality, real browser makers understand that there are more adversaries than governments, and actually SSL was designed to make online shopping safer, not be a tool of revolution. Judged by the "make shopping safer" standard it does a pretty great job. Judged by the "fight repressive regime and save the world" standard, it still does a surprisingly good job - the NSA doesn't seem to like it much at all - but it's unrealistic to expect an internet protocol designed in the mid 90s to do that.