4 ms·

It's a local proxy, meaning the certificate needs to be deployed locally.

by nothrabannosir 12y ago

nailer 12y ago
Ah - I'd assumed they had a box in China somewhere that was MITMing and injecting the ads. Thanks.
- chinathrow 12y ago
  Well, if you look at what the SDK could do - that isn't too far out of reach: http://www.komodia.com/products/komodia-redirector/ http://www.komodia.com/products/komodia-redirector/
- mahouse 12y ago
  Taking away the legal aspect, that would be incredibly slow and easily noticeable.
  - sillysaurus3 12y ago
    It wouldn't delay the page load time, so it doesn't seem like it would be slow or very noticeable. As a user, at most you'd notice ads popping up a few seconds after the page loaded. But users without adblock are used to such things. And as long as the adware reserves a blank space on the page to display ads, the ads won't mess with the layout of the page when they load. EDIT: Why has this been downvoted twice? It's absolutely correct. It's a strange day when you post something unambiguously true to HN and it gets summarily downvoted. The only part that isn't unambiguously true is that "most users without adblock are used to such behavior already." But I stand by that phrase, because "most users" are people who understand almost nothing about about computers. Remember, downvotes are reserved for trolls and people you disagree with, not something which you think is "maybe untrue but I don't know whether it's true." I've complained in the past about having to write epic edits because people don't follow this so I have to explain myself further. Maybe you want more explanation about how precisely the above MITM would work? Here's how: The page loads. This completes normally, and the user doesn't see anything differently. In the meantime, Superfish reads the network traffic that has loaded. It also has injected some javascript in order to reserve a spot on the page to display ads. This would be a big blank space where the ads go after they load. Now the network traffic is sent off to China or wherever. It's analyzed on a server, then the server sends back commands to Superfish about what to do, like "Display ad 91234128 at X,Y spot on the webpage." The total roundtrip time would be no more than a few seconds. China isn't the moon. Half the speed of light is fast.
    - voxic11 12y ago
      Your post is off topic and misses the point entirely which is why you are being down voted. Routing all http traffic to China and back would certainly introduce noticeable delay in page load times.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
    - sp332 12y ago
      It's a proxy, so every request and response is routed through it. Not just the ads. Every element of every page would have this delay added.
      - sillysaurus3 12y ago
        Superfish is a local proxy. It doesn't introduce load time delays, because it's local to the machine. The page would load normally, then Superfish would be shipped off to China, then it would receive a command back from China about what to do.
        sp332 12y ago
        nailer specifically said the box in China was doing the MITM.
        nailer 12y ago
        I specifically said it was an assumption I had - after it was proven incorrect.
        barrkel 12y ago
        That wouldn't avoid storing the key on the local machine, since the MITM server still needs to be on the local proxy. I have no idea why you're chasing this thing. The gist of nailer's original post was asking why the private key was accessible. Whether the local proxy talked to a box in China or not seems completely irrelevant.

It's a local proxy, meaning the certificate needs to be deployed locally.

nailer 12y ago

Ah - I'd assumed they had a box in China somewhere that was MITMing and injecting the ads. Thanks.

chinathrow 12y ago
Well, if you look at what the SDK could do - that isn't too far out of reach: http://www.komodia.com/products/komodia-redirector/ http://www.komodia.com/products/komodia-redirector/
mahouse 12y ago
Taking away the legal aspect, that would be incredibly slow and easily noticeable.
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  It wouldn't delay the page load time, so it doesn't seem like it would be slow or very noticeable. As a user, at most you'd notice ads popping up a few seconds after the page loaded. But users without adblock are used to such things. And as long as the adware reserves a blank space on the page to display ads, the ads won't mess with the layout of the page when they load. EDIT: Why has this been downvoted twice? It's absolutely correct. It's a strange day when you post something unambiguously true to HN and it gets summarily downvoted. The only part that isn't unambiguously true is that "most users without adblock are used to such behavior already." But I stand by that phrase, because "most users" are people who understand almost nothing about about computers. Remember, downvotes are reserved for trolls and people you disagree with, not something which you think is "maybe untrue but I don't know whether it's true." I've complained in the past about having to write epic edits because people don't follow this so I have to explain myself further. Maybe you want more explanation about how precisely the above MITM would work? Here's how: The page loads. This completes normally, and the user doesn't see anything differently. In the meantime, Superfish reads the network traffic that has loaded. It also has injected some javascript in order to reserve a spot on the page to display ads. This would be a big blank space where the ads go after they load. Now the network traffic is sent off to China or wherever. It's analyzed on a server, then the server sends back commands to Superfish about what to do, like "Display ad 91234128 at X,Y spot on the webpage." The total roundtrip time would be no more than a few seconds. China isn't the moon. Half the speed of light is fast.
  - voxic11 12y ago
    Your post is off topic and misses the point entirely which is why you are being down voted. Routing all http traffic to China and back would certainly introduce noticeable delay in page load times.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
  - sp332 12y ago
    It's a proxy, so every request and response is routed through it. Not just the ads. Every element of every page would have this delay added.
    - sillysaurus3 12y ago
      Superfish is a local proxy. It doesn't introduce load time delays, because it's local to the machine. The page would load normally, then Superfish would be shipped off to China, then it would receive a command back from China about what to do.
      - sp332 12y ago
        nailer specifically said the box in China was doing the MITM.
        nailer 12y ago
        I specifically said it was an assumption I had - after it was proven incorrect.
      - barrkel 12y ago
        That wouldn't avoid storing the key on the local machine, since the MITM server still needs to be on the local proxy. I have no idea why you're chasing this thing. The gist of nailer's original post was asking why the private key was accessible. Whether the local proxy talked to a box in China or not seems completely irrelevant.