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EFF's HTTPS Everywhere Detects and Warns About Cryptographic Vulnerabilities
Peter Eckersley writes "EFF has released version 2 of the HTTPS Everywhere browser extension for Firefox, and a beta version for Chrome. The Firefox release has a major new feature called the Decentralized SSL Observatory. This optional setting submits anonymous copies of the HTTPS certificates that your browser sees to their Observatory database allowing them to detect attacks against the web's cryptographic infrastructure. It also allows us to send real-time warnings to users who are affected by cryptographic vulnerabilities or man-in-the-middle attacks. At the moment, the Observatory will send warnings if you connect to a device has a weak private key due to recently discovered random number generator bugs."
"It also allows us to send real-time warnings to users who are affected by cryptographic vulnerabilities or man-in-the-middle attacks."
so how does that work? you know who's connected where?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I noticed this add-on pop up when I started the latest TOR release. Seems like a good idea.
So to enable this feature, you basically have to tell them when you visit a site over SSL. Good thing it's the EFF, because we're spreading our browsing history every which way as it is. Phishing detection, WOT, sometimes the browser vendors themselves, not to mention all the ads, cookies and trackers. But I guess the people who are likely to install HTTPSEverywhere know how to protect themselves against the last three (AdBlock+, Ghostery, NoScript, etc).
CJ
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
I want a browser extension to record and track my connections into a centralized database. It's for my own benefit, you see.
Good thing it's the EFF, because we're spreading our browsing history every which way as it is.
Your ISP knows all about you, and your family, and what the cat looks at while you are away.
Just in case you didn't think the tinfoil was tight enough.
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BMO
No, they come with pre-trusted cert authorities. And any cert authority can issue a certificate for any domain. So, if somebody "convinces" Verisign to give them a cert for facebook.com, that's it, they are now facebook.com as far as every browser is concerned.
In fact, sites like Facebook and Google change their certs so often (probably due to load-balancing or the simple challenge of synchronizing a certificate over a global set of datacenters), it's practically a full-time job keeping track of whether this "new" cert is valid or not.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Your ISP knows all about you, and your family, and what the cat looks at while you are away.
No they don't, because my cat and I are using SSL :)
CJ
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
The list of people who both care about the non-commercial interests of an end user and are technically proficient to do something about it is pretty small.
So? They cannot legally do anything with it, and there is no way they can be legally compelled to perform espionage without a warrant.
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
Don't web browsers already come with pre-known public keys/certs to detect Man-In-The-Middle attacks?? I like the HTTPS everywhere part but I don't get why this is useful or needed as of today...
I've read of 3 successful attempts to get fake "Bank of America" certs. One was a cert for "Bank of America\0My Phishing Site", and browers would stop at the null and accept it. One was simply an email request with forged headers to the CA, who responded with a BoA cert without double-checking the origin of the request. One was signed by one of the now-bogus CAs while most browers hadn't yet updated with awareness of that bogosity.
And those are just the ones I've read about.
CAs are simply no longer the "trusted 3rd party" needed to prevent MitM attacks. EFF is trying to fill that void, and I'm sure that will work well for a while!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
So? They cannot legally do anything with it, and there is no way they can be legally compelled to perform espionage without a warrant.
You have just blown my mind. You are right, of course, it is only the people who can legally do things with the information that scare me.
The TOR browser bundle includes this change (because the HTTPS-everywhere addon auto-updates, IIRC). For those who opt in, the EFF will know far more about their browsing history then their ISP.
Of course, if you don't trust the EFF's claims that it will be anonymized, I'm not sure why you'd trust the anonymity of TOR, but that's a different topic.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Seems like some perfectly reasonable paranoia, assuming everyone is out to get you all the time. The powers that be can't do much without actually charging you with a crime.
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
Your ISP knows all about . . . what the cat looks at while you are away.
http://barelyferal.tumblr.com/
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
>barely feral
Oh dear gawd.
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BMO
Updating a cert over 100 servers is not hard. Doing so over 10000 servers is no harder, but it takes longer for the script to run though the list. You did run this as a scripted batch update, right? You aren't logging into each server manually, right?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Proof that social engineering is how security fails. It's not the techs to blame. It's the executives ... the dishonest rich.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
They know where your encrypted packets are going. That is, unless you also encrypted the destination IP address (and if that's so, then I know where your packets are going).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Well yeah, you could do that. Or, since literally no browser warns about changed certificates in their default configuration, you could just do whatever is easiest.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
DO you have a source that backs up that outlandish claim?!
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
So? They cannot legally do anything with it, and there is no way they can be legally compelled to perform espionage without a warrant.
Legally compelled? Hell, they will do it voluntarily and in return the powers that be will grant them retroactive immunity for their criminal actions. I've seen it happen!
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
You'd think that somebody coming out with version 2 of a security-sensitive browser extension would deploy it in a manner that would ensure auto-updates. I searched in the Chrome Web Store and there was no sign of this. You have to install it directly from their website. That means that it won't auto-update, and I need to remember to install/maintain it on every Chrome profile I have (no auto-syncing).
I'd rather not have to guess or check whether any particular browser I'm using has the extension installed and up-to-date...
And listening a bit further
"he was like ssl, yeah I haven't throught about that in a long time. and he was like amazing ..... Oh these certificate authorities whats the deal with them...oh that whole authenticity thing yeah we just threw that in at the end...he was like ssl yeah I mean we were really designing it to prevent passive attacks, the whole man in the middle thing someone told us about that and you know we just kind of threw that thing in at the end, really that whole certificate authority thing it was a bit of a hand wave
So it sounds like they did put CAs in as an attempt to defend against MITM attacks but they didn't really care too much about whether it worked or not.
Which makes far more sense than the GGPs claim that the system was not designed to stop MITM attacks at all. If you aren't trying to defend against MITM attacks at all then there really isn't any point in having CAs in the first place.
Plus the CA system has got weaker over the years, when it was first introduced you had to convince one of a couple of companies that you were either the legitimate owner of the domain or that you are not the legitimate owner of the domain but they should give you the cert anyway. Now you have to convince one of the CAs listed in http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/certs/included/ or one of the many sub-cas they delegate to that you are either the legitimate owner of the domain or that you are not the legitimate owner of the domain but they should give you the cert anyway.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register