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> great free StartSSL It looks like they cleaned up their forums from when they were last mentioned[1] but I'll still keep my distance. Anything like this is

by nadams 12y ago

> great free StartSSL It looks like they cleaned up their forums from when they were last mentioned[1] but I'll still keep my distance. Anything like this is really a bandaid for the real problem with SSL/CA. As in why can't I be a CA for my own domain? I think Android is a perfect example of this problem - if you import a CA cert using the built in Android credential storage every time you reboot it will show a vague and useless message saying that people may be spying on you. Not which CA cert was added and when - just "hey, you added, on purpose, a CA cert. I'm just making sure you are aware of this".[2] I understand the warning? error?...err simply because now I can sign a cert for ANY domain and Android will accept it as legit. This makes sense for the average users who don't understand or care what a CA is, not advanced users or enterprise users who will most likely use their own CA infrastructure. In this case - it would make more sense for them to be a CA over just company.tld rather than any domain. Personally - I'm using a modified version of PHP-CA[3] (as in changed the OpenSSL defaults to something sane and fixed some small issues). It's obviously not very advanced (for lack of better words kind of sucks) - but I wanted to hit the ground running with being my own CA for personal use and I have other projects I'm working on. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8901822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8901822 [2] - https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=82036 https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=82036 [3] - http://php-ca.sourceforge.net/ http://php-ca.sourceforge.net/

Animats 12y ago
As in why can't I be a CA for my own domain? Because then anyone who can hijack DNS for your domain can also be a CA for your domain.
- nadams 12y ago
  I'm sorry I didn't make that more clearer - that was a hypothetical question. The question is a loaded question and it raises other deeper rooted issues like what you pointed out (MITM attacks against DNS being one such example). There would have to be some sort of authoritative list where it says "this CA cert can sign certificates only for this domain". However, such a system I described would basically be CAs as they currently stand. The question/problem is who would maintain such a list? This is hard question considering we can't even agree on web standards coughMicrosoftcough.
- btgeekboy 12y ago
  Is that any worse than what we have now? If I can hijack your DNS, I can certainly insert or replace enough infrastructure to acquire a basic cert from numerous providers. All I really need is to hijack the MX. Bonus points if I can do it without you knowing, such that mail is first delivered to me and then on to you. In other words, if you could put a CA into a TXT record at the root of the domain and have browsers/etc trust it, how is it any less secure than what we have now?
  - technomancy 12y ago
    The scenario you've described leaves an audit trail. If you don't have a CA, hijacking the DNS means you can pull off an attack completely silently.
dsacco 12y ago
You're right that SSL has problems, but you cannot be the certificate authority for your own domain, and I'll explain why. The certificate authority system is an imperfect solution for the problem of public key infrastructure. It is designed such that a trusted, independent third party can verify messages between two communicating parties. The third party's trusted signature verifies that the user is who they say they are. Now, if anyone can be a certificate authority, and you can be your own certificate authority, you have effectively removed certificate authorities entirely - you now end up with de facto two parties. This is convenient for you to certify that you are yourself, obviously. This is inconvenient and dangerous for you when anyone else certifies that they are you using themselves as a certificate authority - if they can sign their public key using their own nominal trustworthiness, the entire problem is back where it started without the certificate authorities in the first place. By design, certificate authorities need to be 1. trustworthy, 2. highly vetted and 3. very few. If everyone is a certificate authority, then no one is.
- nadams 12y ago
  > By design, certificate authorities need to be 1. trustworthy, 2. highly vetted and 3. very few. If everyone is a certificate authority, then no one is. Isn't that the situation we are in now? All it takes is one CA with poor security coughDiginotarcough and the whole system is broken. I'm obviously ignoring the fact we have CRLs - but if someone has a signed cert for say chase.com or google.com they can do a lot of damage in a very little amount of time. Maybe I'm just cynical that there is a profit motive to CAs. I mean, you can't tell me that it's just greed that you can purchase a certificate to turn a user's address bar green because it's "extended validated". The average user won't notice, or even know what that means. Big picture behavior - there is no functional difference between a EV and non-EV signed certificates. My opinion: if we keep the SSL/CA system the way it is today - we need fewer CAs but create non-profit CAs where the average person can get CA signed/trusted certificate for free or next to free. I'm not talking about grabbing some random dude off the street and start a non-profit - it should be funded and sponsored by companies like Google/Verisign/Microsoft etc.
  - thanksgiving 12y ago

by nadams 12y ago

Animats 12y ago

As in why can't I be a CA for my own domain? Because then anyone who can hijack DNS for your domain can also be a CA for your domain.

nadams 12y ago
I'm sorry I didn't make that more clearer - that was a hypothetical question. The question is a loaded question and it raises other deeper rooted issues like what you pointed out (MITM attacks against DNS being one such example). There would have to be some sort of authoritative list where it says "this CA cert can sign certificates only for this domain". However, such a system I described would basically be CAs as they currently stand. The question/problem is who would maintain such a list? This is hard question considering we can't even agree on web standards coughMicrosoftcough.
btgeekboy 12y ago
Is that any worse than what we have now? If I can hijack your DNS, I can certainly insert or replace enough infrastructure to acquire a basic cert from numerous providers. All I really need is to hijack the MX. Bonus points if I can do it without you knowing, such that mail is first delivered to me and then on to you. In other words, if you could put a CA into a TXT record at the root of the domain and have browsers/etc trust it, how is it any less secure than what we have now?
- technomancy 12y ago
  The scenario you've described leaves an audit trail. If you don't have a CA, hijacking the DNS means you can pull off an attack completely silently.

dsacco 12y ago

You're right that SSL has problems, but you cannot be the certificate authority for your own domain, and I'll explain why. The certificate authority system is an imperfect solution for the problem of public key infrastructure. It is designed such that a trusted, independent third party can verify messages between two communicating parties. The third party's trusted signature verifies that the user is who they say they are. Now, if anyone can be a certificate authority, and you can be your own certificate authority, you have effectively removed certificate authorities entirely - you now end up with de facto two parties. This is convenient for you to certify that you are yourself, obviously. This is inconvenient and dangerous for you when anyone else certifies that they are you using themselves as a certificate authority - if they can sign their public key using their own nominal trustworthiness, the entire problem is back where it started without the certificate authorities in the first place. By design, certificate authorities need to be 1. trustworthy, 2. highly vetted and 3. very few. If everyone is a certificate authority, then no one is.

nadams 12y ago
> By design, certificate authorities need to be 1. trustworthy, 2. highly vetted and 3. very few. If everyone is a certificate authority, then no one is. Isn't that the situation we are in now? All it takes is one CA with poor security coughDiginotarcough and the whole system is broken. I'm obviously ignoring the fact we have CRLs - but if someone has a signed cert for say chase.com or google.com they can do a lot of damage in a very little amount of time. Maybe I'm just cynical that there is a profit motive to CAs. I mean, you can't tell me that it's just greed that you can purchase a certificate to turn a user's address bar green because it's "extended validated". The average user won't notice, or even know what that means. Big picture behavior - there is no functional difference between a EV and non-EV signed certificates. My opinion: if we keep the SSL/CA system the way it is today - we need fewer CAs but create non-profit CAs where the average person can get CA signed/trusted certificate for free or next to free. I'm not talking about grabbing some random dude off the street and start a non-profit - it should be funded and sponsored by companies like Google/Verisign/Microsoft etc.
- thanksgiving 12y ago