Nokia Admits Decrypting User Data Claiming It Isn't Looking

judgecorp writes "Nokia has admitted that it routinely decrypts user's HTTPS traffic, but says it is only doing it so it can compress it to improve speed. That doesn't convince security researcher Gaurang Pandya, who accuses the company of spying on customers." From the article, Nokia says: "'Importantly, the proxy servers do not store the content of web pages visited by our users or any information they enter into them. When temporary decryption of HTTPS connections is required on our proxy servers, to transform and deliver users' content, it is done in a secure manner. ... Nokia has implemented appropriate organisational and technical measures to prevent access to private information. Claims that we would access complete unencrypted information are inaccurate.'"

Comments

How do they even do that?

[Anonymous Coward]

There must be serious flaws in HTTPS if they can decrypt the traffic for hosts that they don't control the certs for.

Re:How do they even do that?

[kasperd]

There must be serious flaws in HTTPS if they can decrypt the traffic for hosts that they don't control the certs for.

They control the browser. According to the article, the necessary certificate is installed on phones as Nokia ships them.

Re:How do they even do that?

[ledow]

On their own phones, they just install a browser and their own trusted wildcard cert.

Then anything you browse to, the browser trusts and encrypts but just to the "wrong" destination.

On any decent machine, or decent browser under your own control, you wouldn't let it happen. And if you did, SSL would be similarly "broken".

SSL is a trust mechanism only. If your phone trusts Nokia, the padlock icon means nothing beyond that you're talking to Nokia. If your phone DIDN'T trust Nokia, it wouldn't be an issue and they would have to pass your traffic through unchanged (and still encrypted!) to the destination servers or risk SSL warnings on your browser.

This is why you don't ignore browser certificate warnings, and why you NEVER install a certificate on your computer (or allow software to). I've seen software that installs a trust certificate for the vendor when installed (as administrator), that would be show up and be allowed in the IE certificate store too (so browsing to any site with a cert signed by that cert would let you think you were talking to Google, etc.)

See also Google's TURKTRUST issue lately - if you trusted TURKTRUST, you thought you were talking to Google and weren't. If you didn't, you would just have got an error and still been secure.

Re:How do they even do that?

[telchine]

There must be serious flaws in HTTPS if they can decrypt the traffic for hosts that they don't control the certs for.

I guess if Nokia controls both the proxy server and the mobile device then their implementation of HTTPS can be designed so that the mobile device trusts the fake cert on the proxy server.

Re:How do they even do that?

[h4rr4r]

On their own phones?
Nokia is not selling these devices?

This sort of language that makes it sound as though the OEM is the owner not the purchaser needs to stop.

Re:How do they even do that?

[jeffmeden]

There must be serious flaws in HTTPS if they can decrypt the traffic for hosts that they don't control the certs for.

They control the browser. According to the article, the necessary certificate is installed on phones as Nokia ships them.

This is exactly what i was thinking/fearing. This is some scary shit, basically you ought to treat HTTPS on your Nokia device like HTTP, unless you really really trust that Nokia knows what they are doing and how to keep a secret. The striking thing is that users obviously have no idea they are handshaking with Nokia instead of their bank, doctor, etc. Are there at least alternate browsers available?

Re:How do they even do that?

[ledow]

Show me where you can edit the list of trusted SSL certificates and I'll concede and call it a user's phone.

Your idealisms are unfortunately blocked by fact, and that knowledge was reflected in my post.

Re:How do they even do that?

[h4rr4r]

All you are proving is that no one should be buying these.

It is not idealism to expect a sold product to have been sold. That is how things have worked for my whole life. Even my current smartphone, but I made sure to buy one I could own.

Re:How do they even do that?

[dririan]

The same thing can be (and is) accomplished in normal desktop OSs by adding a CA certificate to the certificate store. It's commonly used in businesses that have an HTTPS proxy as well as an HTTP proxy so they can filter/monitor HTTPS access as well. IIRC there was an Ask Slashdot question about it as well. In any case, no modification of the implementation is needed.

Re:How do they even do that?

[samkass]

Show me where you can edit the list of trusted SSL certificates and I'll concede and call it a user's phone.

Your idealisms are unfortunately blocked by fact, and that knowledge was reflected in my post.

Show me a way to allow this without creating a huge potential security hole and I'll concede this should be something that's easy to do.

Re:How do they even do that?

[houstonbofh]

How is easy, as other have said. How legally? That is another matter. As I read it, they are committing a DMCA violation by breaking a security measure. Should be able to go after them for anticircumvention tools, and force them to remove the cirt.

Re:How do they even do that?

[beelsebob]

HTTPS is only as secure as the implementation. The implementation in their browser deliberately implements it poorly, and accepts Nokia's server saying "yes, I verified the certificate on the remote server" as being valid verification of the cert.

Re:How do they even do that?

[Anonymous Coward]

There must be serious flaws in HTTPS if they can decrypt the traffic for hosts that they don't control the certs for.

They control the browser. According to the article, the necessary certificate is installed on phones as Nokia ships them.

This is exactly what i was thinking/fearing. This is some scary shit, basically you ought to treat HTTPS on your Nokia device like HTTP, unless you really really trust that Nokia knows what they are doing and how to keep a secret. The striking thing is that users obviously have no idea they are handshaking with Nokia instead of their bank, doctor, etc. Are there at least alternate browsers available?

"Unless you trust Nokia..."
Why would you use any of their stuff otherwise?
From a trust standpoint, you already got past that by using it in the first place.
Maybe you disagree with them or think it's risky, that's fine, but you have to trust THEM to use the thing anyway.

Re:How do they even do that?

[erroneus]

Your trust is extended because of the expectations involved. The user/owner of the device is not informed that, unlike his PC or other smart phone devices, Nokia is handling encyption differently. As https is used primarily for the purpose of securing data traffic between the user and their banks or their other services which need security, the expectation has always been that it would not involve the maker of the device which is being used.

I "trust" my car maker to build a good car. I do not "trust" them not to install cameras in it without my knowledge and then tell me later "there are cameras, but we are not looking at the video feed."

Re:How do they even do that?

[tnk1]

I don't trust Microsoft in the slightest, but I can use their stuff on my PC because I have the ability to audit and control what comes in and out of my computer. If they try something, either I can discover it myself, or one of a hundred security researchers will be able to find it. Also, the application software encrypting my data is installed by me and under my control and ability to inspect.

The idea with HTTPS is that you know that you *cannot* trust the intervening internet/cellular carrier infrastructure to not be monitored, so you set up an encrypted discussion that can pass through that untrusted domain without being read. Nokia subverting this process for any reason, any reason, renders it pointless because Nokia is now a third party that can read your data, even if they double pinky swear that they won't be evil. I don't want their assurances, I don't want them to even be able to do it, period.

I imagine that most people did not realize that Nokia had subverted the certificates and they think that they are having a more or less safe conversation with their destination... as they would be if Nokia didn't replace the certs.

Re:How do they even do that?

[h4rr4r]

The same way you do on your computer?

Re:How do they even do that?

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of schools and businesses install a certificate on all of their machines that allows them to silently intercept HTTPS traffic on their network too. The only way to be sure is check the actual certificate for each site.

Re:How do they even do that?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I'm sure some government agents are swearing this morning, "Nokia, you're letting out all our best secrets!"

"Remember when you asked me to tell you when you were being rude and insensitive?"

Re:How do they even do that?

[poetmatt]

MS-Nokia partnership = it's worth investigating if any aspect of this decryption means that windows software is also accessing the unencrypted data.

Re:How do they even do that?

[CanHasDIY]

There must be serious flaws in HTTPS if they can decrypt the traffic for hosts that they don't control the certs for.

The flaw isn't in HTTPS; the flaw is in browsers that trust whatever the programmer wants them to trust, as opposed to what the end user wants them to trust.

Re:How do they even do that?

[CKW]

Yes, this IS wiretapping. I don't care if they've got a tiny tiny line item in their terms of service that say they're doing this, NO ONE expects their https encrypted session with their bank to be in the clear on Nokia's servers.

I'd really really like to see the RCMP charge Nokia Canada's CIO just on principle. Just because big companies have lawyers and huge t.o.s. don't mean they should be treated any differently than joe blow secretly inserting software on his aunt's computer to listen in to her voip conversations.

Re:How do they even do that?

[Anonymous Coward]

There must be serious flaws in HTTPS if they can decrypt the traffic for hosts that they don't control the certs for.

They control the browser. According to the article, the necessary certificate is installed on phones as Nokia ships them.

This is exactly what i was thinking/fearing. This is some scary shit, basically you ought to treat HTTPS on your Nokia device like HTTP, unless you really really trust that Nokia knows what they are doing and how to keep a secret. The striking thing is that users obviously have no idea they are handshaking with Nokia instead of their bank, doctor, etc. Are there at least alternate browsers available?

If you read the other comments, and also have some understanding how PROXY browsers such as Opera Mini and the Nokia Xpress Browser in question work, you would understand also the scope of this discussions. It is NOT all browsers on Nokia devices, it is only the proxy-based browsers for limited resource devices (S40 devices with small amount of memory), that are unable to run a full-fledged browser for any page beyond simple "hello world" even if they would be able to launch the browser.

So, the facts on the case are:
1) You do not have a full browser on device
2) In order for the device to get "browsing" experience, you need to translate the html-page to a simpler markup, resize the images, etc. that the device can render with the limited amount of cpu and memory it has
3) Nokia or any other proxy browser vendor may choose then to support SSL protected sites by rendering it on the server and securely transferring the translated content to the device, OR not support SSL protected sites at all.

Now whether the choice they made is the correct one, we can debate... But this is NOT for all Nokia devices and all Nokia browsers (they have other webkit-based browsers on Symbian devices, Windows Phone has Microsoft's browser, etc.)

Re:How do they even do that?

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

That just made me think, how will this affect the share of the government's business that Nokia receives? :)

Re:How do they even do that?

[Anonymous Coward]

HTTPS is only as secure as the implementation. The implementation in their browser deliberately implements it poorly, and accepts Nokia's server saying "yes, I verified the certificate on the remote server" as being valid verification of the cert.

So, people, this is not what is happening. There is no "web browser" on the phone, but something that is more akin to a terminal to a server based browser session where alle the rendering and javascript execution is happening (and of course the SSL has to be terminated there for that). Opera Mini has been doing this for years. I don't disagree that there are potential security considerations with this, at least need for user education (which this discussion clearly shows).

Re:How do they even do that?

[peawormsworth]

This is why I dislike hardware producers also providing the software. I wouldnt purchase a computing device where I cannot install a selection of 3rd party software. Preferably the 3rd party software should be open sourced so it is difficult for anyone to hide vulnerable routines in the code. It is far to easy for manufacturers to reduce functionality or security in order to further their own interests. Examples: you see this in the chrome browser, where google reduces login security in order to further their own google account login management service and apple products where music selection and ownership is channelled through their own offerings and competing offerings are limited or blocked.

If it was so good then why didn't you tell us?

[kthreadd]

Then you would have looked somewhat better. Now you're worse than Dropbox.

Re:If it was so good then why didn't you tell us?

[Baloroth]

Then you would have looked somewhat better. Now you're worse than Dropbox.

Well, see, they did tell you. It says, on Wikipedia and Nokia's developer page, that the browser in question uses a proxy. Their developer page and the Wikipedia page.

Re:If it was so good then why didn't you tell us?

[Luckyo]

They don't just tell you - they advertise it. It's one of the phones biggest selling features.

The issue in countries where the phone is sold is network traffic. It's costly. VERY costly. This browser does what opera mini did for about a decade - it works through nokia's special proxy that fetches the page for you, renders it in unique way that saves a lot of traffic and then sends it to your phone's browser.

Re:If it was so good then why didn't you tell us?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. They didn't tell us. This isn't merely a proxy. A proxy can be used with SSL without decrypting the user's data.

This is Nokia _pretending_ to be whoever you're SSLing to, pre-configuring the browser to accept the ruse, DECRYPTING YOUR DATA, "compressing" it, sending it along their pipe, recrypting it, recompressing it, and then _pretending_ to be you to whoever you're trying to contact. This could only be more of a violation of your privacy (and potentially the law, somebody look into this) if they were blatantly reading your data and issued a press release saying "Yup, we're reading your emails. Go fuck youself."

Interestingly, this is as fraudulent to the recipient as it is to the user. Somebody might want to poke the higher-ups at Google or any common HTTPS destination and let them know that Nokia phones are fraudulently impersonating non-compromised users of their services. _That_ will be fun to watch.

Re:If it was so good then why didn't you tell us?

[Anonymous Coward]

They advertise the feature without advertising the implications.

The technically astute automatically know that this means, but most people don't realize that the cheaper pages means them snooping into everything that you normally expect is private and secure.

And yes, I realize they claim that they don't snoop, but I don't believe that for a second. If people can, they will. That is how humans work. Also humans lie, a lot.

Re:If it was so good then why didn't you tell us?

[Pieroxy]

They advertise the feature without advertising the implications.

Of course, that's called "marketing". Push up the upsides, burry the downsides.

Re:If it was so good then why didn't you tell us?

[TheGratefulNet]

so, why can't they keep their fingers off httpS, then?

proxy thru the plaintext. fine. no one cares.

but my banking?

sheesh, keep your damned fingers off my bits! that's creepy that they'd feel JUSTIFIED in decrypting ssl.

ssl also is not usually bulk traffic. is it? I don't see graphics and movies coming thru in ssl. ssl is there FOR privacy.

why proxy this stuff when you can proxy the bulk-only stuff and everyone wins with no loss of privacy?

this is not rocket science.

Re:If it was so good then why didn't you tell us?

[oldlurker]

so, why can't they keep their fingers off httpS, then?

proxy thru the plaintext. fine. no one cares.

but my banking?

sheesh, keep your damned fingers off my bits! that's creepy that they'd feel JUSTIFIED in decrypting ssl.

ssl also is not usually bulk traffic. is it? I don't see graphics and movies coming thru in ssl. ssl is there FOR privacy.

why proxy this stuff when you can proxy the bulk-only stuff and everyone wins with no loss of privacy?

this is not rocket science.

Because the phone doesn't have a full web browser. The server is doing the rendering, you are basically surfing as a server session through a terminal. Exactly same as Opera Mini does (also pre-installed on a ton of phones, from Samsung, Motorola, LG and others)

Re:If it was so good then why didn't you tell us?

[oldlurker]

No. They didn't tell us. This isn't merely a proxy. A proxy can be used with SSL without decrypting the user's data.

This is Nokia _pretending_ to be whoever you're SSLing to, pre-configuring the browser to accept the ruse, DECRYPTING YOUR DATA, "compressing" it, sending it along their pipe, recrypting it, recompressing it, and then _pretending_ to be you to whoever you're trying to contact. This could only be more of a violation of your privacy (and potentially the law, somebody look into this) if they were blatantly reading your data and issued a press release saying "Yup, we're reading your emails. Go fuck youself."

Interestingly, this is as fraudulent to the recipient as it is to the user. Somebody might want to poke the higher-ups at Google or any common HTTPS destination and let them know that Nokia phones are fraudulently impersonating non-compromised users of their services. _That_ will be fun to watch.

Are people here really so unfamiliar with how server-based "browsers" (they are not real web browsers) work? They are basically fancy terminals to a server based browsing session. Of course SSL needs to be terminated at the server in such a setup because it is the server doing all the rendering and javascript processing. This has been common for a long time. Opera Mini operates exactly the same as this Nokia browser, also for SSL, and is pre-installed on a ton of phones from Samsung, Motorola, LG and others.

Re:If it was so good then why didn't you tell us?

[sdsucks]

Most users would NOT expect their encrypted traffic to be decrypted.

Are you really going to tell me that most Nokia users understand that their SSL traffic is unencrypted by Nokia?

Re:If it was so good then why didn't you tell us?

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

And that a Nokia employee might be able to see their bank data from any time they log in to their bank's site? Are there any other companies involved that see that bank data down the chain?

What?

[recoiledsnake]

security researcher Gaurang Pandya

What are this guy's credentials apart from being a guy with a blog?

Amazon Silk browser does the same, Opera mini does the same, what's with this jumping on the Nokia hate bandwagon? Perhaps they should stop proxying HTTPS traffic, but remember in third world countries data comes at a HUGE premium, so these services are a god send, especially with a lot of sites moving to HTTPS by default. I would hope that Opera/Amazon/Nokia are atleast as credible as your ISP though it's an additional point of failure.

Re:What?

[kvnslash]

Remember, the United States and Britain are not third world countries. I don't see how this behavior is acceptable, even if some other companies are doing it.

Re:What?

[h4rr4r]

Your ISP cannot decrypt SSL traffic.
Not everyone lives in a third world nation and surely they should be able to opt out of this.

Re:What?

[godrik]

Amazon Silk and Opera mini clearly states that every single connexion goes through them in clear. I do not think nokia does.

My ISP does not do that. When I negogiate an HTTPS session, my ISP does not intercept it and perform a MITM attack. apparently nokia does.

That's so much not ok.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter who is doing this, Nokia, Amazon, or whoever, it is still evil, even if it serves a so called "good cause". The road to hell is paved with good intentions... Don't forget, it is defying the whole purpose of SSL and TLS in the first place. SSL is SUPPOSED to guarantee a private connection between the user and the party he's communicating with. Nokia or whoever has NO business in this and they should stay out of the loop.

Honestly, I don't understand why more people aren't jumping on this. Banks, governments, they should cry foul about those kinds of tactics.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter what his credentials are, if he's right, which he appears to be based on Nokia's response.

A secure HTTPS connection from your browser to a destination web site doesn't rely on the credibility of your ISP. In fact, your ISP is one of the possible adversaries such a secure connection protects from.

Although, since Nokia built the phone and the software on it, you have already placed a great deal of trust with Nokia for all of your data that flows through it. Therefore, that they are temporarily decrypting your traffic for a period of time, on their network, isn't such a great leap of faith at that point.

At the same time, they have a duty to inform customers that secure connections from the Nokia browser to destination web sites are not completely encrypted end-to-end. It would also be good to allow customers to turn this capability on or off. At the end of the day, this is Nokia's service, and as long as they are upfront with what they are offering, they can provide the service as they please.

Re:What?

[girlintraining]

What are this guy's credentials apart from being a guy with a blog?

He's a software developer, mostly focusing on database integration. He has no professional security experience beyond what you'd get in that role. source

what's with this jumping on the Nokia hate bandwagon?

You can't opt out of it; The platform is locked. Also, it's a cell phone, so there's a strong link between all internet traffic and a realworld identity. This isn't like Opera or Amazon, for which there are anonymizing options available to the enterprising individuals who wish to use said services (or don't, it's their choice).

I would hope that Opera/Amazon/Nokia are atleast as credible as your ISP though it's an additional point of failure.

these services are a god send, especially with a lot of sites moving to HTTPS by default.

HTTP/SSL was originally meant to ensure only the two parties involved in the transaction (your client and the remote website) would be aware of its contents, preventing man in the middle attacks. By adding proxies, redirects, etc., the entire point of the protocol is destroyed. It's like password protecting your wifi connection with "letmein" -- bad security is in some cases worse than no security because people think the connection is secure when it most certainly is not.

I'm not sure what you mean by "credible" in this context, as you mention no specific claims any of these three are making, nor offer any reason why we should (or should not) trust whatever reputations these companies may have with regards to said claim. Can you elaborate?

Re:What?

[SecurityGuy]

What are this guy's credentials apart from being a guy with a blog?

Who cares what his credentials are? He's making a claim that a lot of people can verify. Is his claim false?

I would hope that Opera/Amazon/Nokia are atleast as credible as your ISP though it's an additional point of failure.

They are, which is not at all. My ISP doesn't have certificates installed in my browser, and aren't secretly decrypting my SSL traffic (unless SSL is fundamentally broken in a way which isn't publicly known yet).

Re:What?

[Rockoon]

Amazon Silk and Opera mini clearly states that every single connexion goes through them in clear. I do not think nokia does.

ok, you "do not think"

My ISP does not do that. When I negogiate an HTTPS session, my ISP does not intercept it and perform a MITM attack. apparently nokia does.

Wow.. in two lines you went from "I do not think" to "apparently nokia performs a MITM attack"

Re:What?

[DarkOx]

For the most part my 'ISP' can't break into my SSL connections. They don't have a certificate authority my machine will trust, so any kind of MTIM they might do without a herculean effort on their part anyway is going to be impossible. These phone users had essentially no idea.

So the moral of the story is DO NOT DO NOT trust that SSL is secure on any device you don't directly control the CA certificates present, and probably you can't trust and SSL code you can't audit to make sure it trusts only the CAs it claims to and actually does validation correctly.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah no. I live in a 3rd world country, Data is not a huge premium here, or in country with public internet access, Actually I bet it's better here than most of the advanced country.out there because our internet infrastructure is way newer.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are this guy's credentials apart from being a guy with a blog?

The provenance of the information doesn't matter.

Amazon Silk browser does the same, [...]

Even if it did, that wouldn't make it OK. HTTPS was created to make secure end-to-end connections possible, if $entity breaks that without telling anyone, then they are to be mistrusted however good they claim their intentions to have been. See, they're not only implicitly claiming that they would never peek; they are also implicitly claiming that they would never allow themselves to be strong-armed into letting someone else peek, and that they are completely 100% secure and unhackable themselves, as well. At some point they are making implicit guarantees that they can't keep, simply because no-one could keep them.

Re:What?

[Rockoon]

HTTP/SSL was originally meant to ensure only the two parties involved in the transaction

..and originally no mobile phone had the necessary processing power to render web pages, and originally mobile bandwidth wasnt enough to even receive web page data at acceptable rates.

As a point of fact, originally web browsing on mobile devices didn't work at all without such services as nokia is still providing. Its why opera was still the worlds number one mobile browser maker by a very significant margin right up until this year when androids browser finally overtook them. You sit there in the lap of luxury completely ignorant of your own past, and don't even realize that you are complaining about others being able to browse the web at all because they still do not sit in the lam of luxury like you do.

Re:What?

[godrik]

I know this is slashdot and we do not read much what people so that we can rant and seem smart. But come on, it is written in TFS and TFT (the F-ing title). "Nokia admits decrypting user data." From their own admission, they are performing a MITM attack, that is to say, they are putting themself in the middle of an encrypted connexion making each party believe they are directly and securely talking to each other.

Whether they clearly explained it to the user, I do not know, but I am sure they are performing MITM.

Re:What?

[girlintraining]

You sit there in the lap of luxury completely ignorant of your own past, and don't even realize that you are complaining about others being able to browse the web at all because they still do not sit in the lam of luxury like you do.

Listen kiddo, I was on the internet before it was the internet, and I had a computer before the original Nintendo you grew up with was even a gleam in an electrical engineer's eye, so don't tell me I'm ignorant of my own past. I've forgotten more about IT than you're likely to ever know. Don't make me get my old IBM XT keyboard out of storage and beat you with it.

That said, it's in storage for a reason. The world moved on. So did cell phones, which were originally the size of bricks and had an LED readout and the signal washed out whenever you revved your engine. What Nokia has here may have been relevant back when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, but today I can buy an SOC chip at retail price for under $30 that'll render 1080p video at 30 FPS and has several gigs of ram on it and a helluva lot more storage. There's no reason for this technology to still be in use on a modern cell phone network. And frankly, if your cell phone is really so old that it needs it, go to the effing Walmart down the road and pickup a "go phone". They give them away there and can run a proper web browser.

Re:What?

[Rockoon]

I know this is slashdot and we do not read much what people so that we can rant and seem smart. But come on, it is written in TFS and TFT (the F-ing title). "Nokia admits decrypting user data."

..because they encrypt the users data on the device, and send it to their servers where it must be decrypted in order to know what it is and even where to send it.

Would you rather they didnt encrypt the data and sent it over the air like that instead?

You claim to know that this is slashdot, but dont seem to know to at least make an attempt to understand the technologies that you are talking about? Worthless blabber.

Hint: the phone is not the endpoint of the browsing session - the phone is a remote terminal for a server that is the endpoint of the browsing session

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Amazon's statement to the EFF Silk does _not_ intercept HTTPS traffic:

SSL Traffic

Amazon does not intercept encrypted traffic, so your communications over HTTPS would not be accelerated or tracked. According to Jon Jenkins, director of Silk development, “secure web page requests (SSL) are routed directly from the Kindle Fire to the origin server and do not pass through Amazon’s EC2 servers.” In other words, no HTTPS requests will ever use cloud acceleration mode. Given the prevalence of web pages served over HTTPS, this gives Amazon good incentive to make Silk fast and usable even when cloud acceleration is off. Turning it off completely should be a viable option for users.

(from https://www.eff.org/2011/october/amazon-fire%E2%80%99s-new-browser-puts-spotlight-privacy-trade-offs)

Re:What?

[Rockoon]

Listen kiddo, I was on the internet before it was the internet

So you might be older than me, but still probably not.

Blah blah blah. The girl that waved her dick when challenged.

The world moved on. So did cell phones, which were originally the size of bricks and had an LED readout and the signal washed out whenever you revved your engine. What Nokia has here may have been relevant back when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, but today I can buy an SOC chip at retail price for under $30 that'll render 1080p video at 30 FPS and has several gigs of ram on it and a helluva lot more storage.

See how fucking myopic you are? Nokia makes phones for the entire world, where GSM is still the predominant standard (80%) and $30 is half a years wage for hundreds of millions of people.

The world didn't move on. You did. Don't attribute to the entire world all the luxury that you have.

Re:What?

[andy1307]

Privacy is more of a concern for users in third world countries...you know..the thing where the government doesn't like what you're reading online and throws you in jail.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether they clearly explained it to the user, I do not know, but I am sure they are performing MITM.

If you define it as a MITM, so are also all Opera Mini browsers doing, on Android phones included.

Re:What?

[godrik]

Are you saying the device does not have a tcp/ip stack? Because if it does, there is no reason the data MUST be decrypted. The device could (and I would expect it to) talk directly with the remote server.

TFA mentions the user of the phone was able to track the DNS request, so clearly the device can talk TCP/IP.

The piece of software is called "Nokia Xpress Browser". It is not called "Nokia VNC client". I do understand the technology. I implemented (a much simpler version of) such a system in PHP 10 years ago for the purpose of saving bandwidth on my feature phone (a nokia one BTW) and cleaning up the HTML feature that were not supported by the client anyway.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

security researcher Gaurang Pandya

What are this guy's credentials apart from being a guy with a blog?

If you read his original article he is clearly completely incompetent and does not understand about the class of "browsers" that do server based rendering and compression to save bandwith and increase speed on slow connections. Opera Mini is used by millions doing exactly the same for a long time, including on Android Phones.

what's with this jumping on the Nokia hate bandwagon?

Slashdot and Nokias connection with Microsoft. In the previous post about this some even tried this to be about Windows Phones (when it is clearly not).

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

security researcher Gaurang Pandya

What are this guy's credentials apart from being a guy with a blog?

Amazon Silk browser does the same, Opera mini does the same, what's with this jumping on the Nokia hate bandwagon? Perhaps they should stop proxying HTTPS traffic, but remember in third world countries data comes at a HUGE premium, so these services are a god send, especially with a lot of sites moving to HTTPS by default. I would hope that Opera/Amazon/Nokia are atleast as credible as your ISP though it's an additional point of failure.

The exactly that should be their target group. Third world countries.
Decrpyting https trafic (like bank sessions etc) is criminal activity. Period.

Re:What?

[Luckyo]

Dementia must have settled in for you. Ashas are sold in third world countries, where costs of netowork traffic over 3G are still extremely high in relation to median income.

First world has indeed mostly moved on. Third world hasn't even started yet.

Re:What?

[oldlurker]

It doesn't matter what his credentials are, if he's right, which he appears to be based on Nokia's response.

Of course he is "right", in that he through incompetence has "discovered" that there is a class of mobile browser "front-ends" (not really full web browsers) that do server based rendering and compression to save bandwith and increase speed on slow connection. Which has been well known (at least for people interested in mobile browsers) for years, fx all Opera Mini browsers do this, on all platforms, with millions of users.

They are not really full web browsers but fancy terminals, you use a server to browse is another way to look at it, and of course the secure connection has to be terminated at the server in this scenario. There are really good questions to discuss about information and education around this, but to suddenly jump on Nokia is just obscuring the reality of this.

Re:What?

[godrik]

As I said before, what Opera Mini is doing is the same thing. Though, I am not sure Opera Mini is doing it for https (maybe it does I just don't know). But Opera Mini tells you all the traffic is routed through them. Nokia Xpress Browser does not appear to tell the user (since some users are surprised of the behavior)

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they do. The last slashdot article on this (yesterday) had references.

It's on their developer pages, its in most (admittedly not all, and increasingly less) of their marketing material. When they first moved the browser out of the Nokia labs page (where this usage was explicitly made clear) it was well advertised; as it's become a standard feature in the S40 range it looks like they mention this functionality less, which I suppose is reasonable considering the information is already out there.

Yes, I don't like the behaviour and I prefer real browsers, and that's why I check the specs when buying a phone. Phones that are listed with a Webkit browser don't do this.

Re:What?

[WolfgangPG]

Thank you. A lot of products are already doing this. It is cool to hate Nokia though because they partnered with Microsoft vs Amazon who is running Android, but doing the same thing...

Re:What?

[Shimbo]

As I said before, what Opera Mini is doing is the same thing. Though, I am not sure Opera Mini is doing it for https (maybe it does I just don't know). But Opera Mini tells you all the traffic is routed through them. Nokia Xpress Browser does not appear to tell the user (since some users are surprised of the behavior)

Opera Mini does indeed do it for https http://www.opera.com/mobile/help/faq/#connection

Re:What?

[oldlurker]

As I said before, what Opera Mini is doing is the same thing. Though, I am not sure Opera Mini is doing it for https (maybe it does I just don't know). But Opera Mini tells you all the traffic is routed through them. Nokia Xpress Browser does not appear to tell the user (since some users are surprised of the behavior)

Opera Mini does it for https too. As for difference in information between the two.. I couldn't say, it is mentioned for both in Wikipedia, but this storm seems to be mainly wipped up from an inflammatory blog post from someone who clearly has very little insight on mobile browsers, posted to a site that currently hate all things Nokia.. :)

I agree that there are concerns about this type of browsers to discuss, but making it a Nokia issue isn't helping that.

Re:What?

[CanHasDIY]

Don't make me get my old IBM XT keyboard out of storage and beat you with it.

Oh, please do!

I do so love medieval combat!

Re:What?

[Captain Hook]

Amazon Silk browser does the same, Opera mini does the same, what's with this jumping on the Nokia hate bandwagon?

running HTTPS through a proxy is not a problem, decrypting the HTTPS at the proxy, reading it... for what ever reason... then encrypting it back up and pretending that the connection between the client and server is secure is a problem.

I don't know about Amazon Silk, but Opera Mini only relays the packets from HTTPS protocol connections which is a completely legimate action, it's not the same thing as what Nokia are doing at all.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in south america, and pay 15 US dollars a month for unlimited 3G data, usually at 2 mbit/s.

Re:What?

[Captain Hook]

Would you rather they didnt encrypt the data and sent it over the air like that instead?

We are talking about HTTPS, the data payload being transmitted is already encrypted, only the data headers which include routing information are in the clear text, there is no need for a proxy server to decrypt the packet to route it.

Re:What?

[Pieroxy]

Newsflash for you: Nokia doesn't sell (many) smartphones in places where such networks are available. The cost of the bandwidth is expensive in some countries, regardless of the century your handset was built in.

Re:What?

[fatphil]

This may sound like a dumb question, but you've probably got a zillion certificates in your browser, including ones from Honest Achmed (who is at least more honest than Comodo), and possibly ones from your ISP - how do you know they aren't capable of decrypting your SSL traffic?

Re:What?

[AmiMoJo]

The point is that people would be upset if Nokia were open about the fact that their "secure" banking session is actually being decrypted by Nokia who promise not to abuse their power. Would business people connecting to their secure corporate email server's web interface be okay with that?

You present a nice false dichotomy. The only other option is not just "send unencrypted over the air", it is "don't intercept the HTTPS traffic at all and pass it encrypted end-to-end".

At the very least Nokia should make it clear this is what is happening, just like Amazon and Opera do.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that half of the "go phone"s are broken implementations of the same sort. Flip phones that act as a terminal for the server that is browsing on your behalf. GP I too have an IBM XT Keyboard; want to duel?

Re:What?

[TheGratefulNet]

ob disc: my field is (used to be) network mgmt and I work in the bay area. netmgt, these days, is quite a lot about sniffing, DPI, triggering (hardware assist, no less, at wire rates), building maps of who talks to who. in short, spying. (I find this highly distasteful and I'm not at all happy with what netmgt is all about, these days).

as long as 5 yrs ago, I had an interview with a company that was proud of the fact that they did ssl mitm intercepts and showed me a 'good but fake cert' that will fool users and they will accept it and after that, they'll see the 'lock icon', feel good but have their comms sniffable, now.

beware if you work on a company lan, these days! mostly if you don't have 100% control over every software bit that was preinstalled on your workstation. you should ASSUME that there were preloaded fake certs on your system and you'll get the lock icon just fine but will be sniffable by the company.

I will not login to my personal accounts, not even using ssl, while on company lans or using company equipment. use your phone in WAN mode if you need that.

just some advice from a guy who walked away from the black-hat style nature that netmgt is becoming. you should assume all companies, now, will be trying this ssl-middle shit on you. unless you built your own system and have exclusive root to it, you should assume your 'lock icon' is not really showing you a true end to end clean link.

(the more you know.)

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

So did the guy from NASA who submitted his resume in a .html file with no html in it and expected to get hired. In this industry old people are chewed up and spit out, not revered for their knowledge.

Re:What?

[fredprado]

It is a Nokia issue. Nokia gives you a cell phone with a MITM exploit preinstalled from factory.

Opera allows you to download and install their MITM Opera Mini suit, if you so wish and trust them, or:

If you need full end-to-end encryption, you should use a full web browser such as Opera Mobile.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gaurang Pandya. Probably just some silly IT enthusiast guy from India.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

don't forget, significant parts of the third world don't even have that 3rd G yet.

when the *initial* round-trip just for the SSL handshake can take 5-10 seconds on crappy 2g networks, data compression can be a god-send.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying the device does not have a tcp/ip stack? Because if it does, there is no reason the data MUST be decrypted. The device could (and I would expect it to) talk directly with the remote server.

Are still being stupid? Stop it!

This has nothing to do with tcp/ip. There is NO BROWSER on the phone, the browser is on the Nokia server, and the browser needs to forward the user data encrypted to the remote server, but it can not insert encrypted data into a HTTP form and expect anything sane to come out of it.

Re:What?

[oldlurker]

It is a Nokia issue. Nokia gives you a cell phone with a MITM exploit preinstalled from factory. Opera allows you to download and install their MITM Opera Mini suit, if you so wish and trust them, or:

If you need full end-to-end encryption, you should use a full web browser such as Opera Mobile.

A ton of devices have come pre-installed with Opera Mini, from Samsung, Motorola, LG, Sony-Ericsson, etc., depending on network operator. http://tech2.in.com/news/mobile-phones/samsung-feature-phones-come-preinstalled-with-opera-mini/284642

Re:What?

[fredprado]

Then the network operators in these cases are as responsible as Nokia is here.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Running unencrypted web traffic through proxy servers for compression is one thing (and a common practice), but decrypting encrypted data for that purpose is an entirely different matter and a legitmate concern. It's analagous to sending an active credit card to your mother in a FedEx mailer and having it opened and examined by a FedEx employee on its way to its destination. Having unfettered access to that information, how many of those workers would simply ignore it? How comfortable are you trusting them? I suspect that Nokia will change their policy in relatively short order.

Re:What?

[EvilNTUser]

Your ISP cannot decrypt SSL traffic.
Not everyone lives in a third world nation and surely they should be able to opt out of this.

You can "opt out" by using a real browser instead of one that's designed to be proxy-assisted. Why is everyone getting so worked up about this? If you're not living in a third world nation, why would you be using this browser anyway?

Re:What?

[oldlurker]

Then the network operators in these cases are as responsible as Nokia is here.

Network operators, Samsung (the linked article lists a number of phones where Samsung pre-installs Opera Mini), etc. Which is exactly my point, this is something you can get from most phone makers (except Apple), for a long time, and as I agree education and information on this is needed that should be part of the story and discussion.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still wait for the day when one's credentials are simply one's body of work rather than some state ordained lady of the lake bullshit piece of paper.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you say from your 1st world lap of luxury.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

security researcher Gaurang Pandya

What are this guy's credentials apart from being a guy with a blog?

Amazon Silk browser does the same, Opera mini does the same, what's with this jumping on the Nokia hate bandwagon? Perhaps they should stop proxying HTTPS traffic, but remember in third world countries data comes at a HUGE premium, so these services are a god send, especially with a lot of sites moving to HTTPS by default. I would hope that Opera/Amazon/Nokia are atleast as credible as your ISP though it's an additional point of failure.

Data is expensive in third world countries because of greedy people in those countries trying to emulate their counterparts in the US. The USA and it's actors act shitty and the rest of the world suffers.

No harm = no fowl?

[Noctis-Kaban]

Big data is caught doing something it shouldn’t. Big data claims “no harm no fowl”. The point is not that it isn’t hurting anyone, nor why they are doing it but the fact that they are creating a security breach in doing so.

Re:No harm = no fowl?

[Anonymous Coward]

Big data claims “no harm no fowl”.

gobble gobble, is that the pun you were shooting for?

Re:No harm = no fowl?

[mcgrew]

I see you're a duck hunter and not a ball player. In case English is a second language (which I suspect), the word you're looking for is "foul".

Listen...

[rickatnight11]

Yes, we're opening your mail, but we're not LOOKING at it. We're just making sure you aren't wasting paper and ink.

Re:Listen...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's pretty much how it sounds to me.

Re:Listen...

[GodfatherofSoul]

This is precisely what the government said about 10 years ago. "We're reading the headers, but we're not reading the message bodies!" As if 2 CRLFs is some kind of blinder.

Re:Listen...

[Anonymous Coward]

when I first saw the article I though it said china

Re:Listen...

[fatphil]

Anyone who's received an email from Nokia and examined the headers will know that Nokia use a Microsoft server in Amsterdam as their email gateway. So there's no hypocrisy, Nokia are prepared to have people snooping on their most secret communications too.

Fedware

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't access your personal information with our closed source NSA backdoors, we just plug this strange Narus device into our routers.

Re:Fedware

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo

The reason Nokia is able to do this

[kasperd]

The reason Nokia is able to do this is that they control the browser. According to the article browsers on Nokia phones are delivered with a certificate, that allows Nokia to perform this MITM attack. They call it a feature and provide a plausible explanation of what benefit it has for the users. However enabling such a risky feature without user consent is a really bad move and means users should no longer trust Nokia products as much as they have done in the past.

Re:The reason Nokia is able to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's anything like Opera mini then your explanation is missing the trade off.
The issue is that the phone is not good enough to run a real browser. So instead the mini browser get simplified instructions from the servers where the actual HTML parser is.
So basically you are running a remote browser on Nokia's or Opera's servers.
It's not as if there was really another option. I guess they could try to parse full HTML on the mini browser when it's HTTPS but that would probably not work so well...

Re:The reason Nokia is able to do this

[kasperd]

The issue is that the phone is not good enough to run a real browser. So instead the mini browser get simplified instructions from the servers where the actual HTML parser is. So basically you are running a remote browser on Nokia's or Opera's servers.

If that's what Nokia is doing, then the article is totally inaccurate. In the article there is no suggestion the phone isn't capable of running a full browser. The proxies are just used to compress the data better before being sent to the client.

Re:The reason Nokia is able to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Same difference.

Re:The reason Nokia is able to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider that Nokia is the choice phone of unsponsored militants throughout the world.

Re:The reason Nokia is able to do this

[gl4ss]

The issue is that the phone is not good enough to run a real browser. So instead the mini browser get simplified instructions from the servers where the actual HTML parser is.
So basically you are running a remote browser on Nokia's or Opera's servers.

If that's what Nokia is doing, then the article is totally inaccurate. In the article there is no suggestion the phone isn't capable of running a full browser. The proxies are just used to compress the data better before being sent to the client.

it is what nokia is doing and they blatantly copied the idea from Opera, they call it a proxy browser.

these phones are extension of the s40 platform. nokias cheapest range, albeit even in that range I guess you could technically run a real browser(reportedly 128mbytes of ram for 3xx range, 32mbytes for the asha 2xx range, fyi nokias real browser sucks a** with 256 so good luck running it on 32mbytes minus OS). these articles are stupid because you could have written this based on data they released back then they announced the phones. they've admitted it all along.. furthermore unless this "security researcher" can show a way to eavesdrop on that connection to nokias servers this is a total non-story.

even more practically these proxies can be used to get around on bans on websites. for example one of easiest ways to fight piratebay ban is to use opera and enable acceleration(proxying and packing through operas servers, you can enable it if you want on desktop opera).

Re:The reason Nokia is able to do this

[kasperd]

nokias real browser sucks a** with 256 so good luck running it on 32mbytes minus OS

From 2007 until 2011 I had a Nokia for work. I don't know how much memory it had, but certainly not enough to run the browser reliably. It would frequently report that it did not have enough memory to open some page. And loading pages took ages.

But of course comparing such an old Nokia to Android phones I got 3 and 4 years later will of course come out with the Android phones ahead. Most of that will be due to the development happened during those years, and less due to the different operating system. I just haven't used more recent Nokia phones.

unless this "security researcher" can show a way to eavesdrop on that connection to nokias servers this is a total non-story.

No. Anybody who can get access to those proxies will then have access to lots of data, which users didn't expect to exist in clear anywhere between their phone and the site they are using. Additionally we don't know how well those proxies validate the certificates of the servers. Even if the connection from the phone to the proxy is secured a mitm attack on the connection from the proxy to the https server could be feasible, if the proxy accepts any certificate on the server.

even more practically these proxies can be used to get around on bans on websites.

Until the ban is applied directly to the proxies in which case a site you may have been able to access in the first place gets blocked. And some countries may decide to ban connections from the phones to those proxies, because they cannot see what you are trying to access.

An alternative connection only make you less likely to experience such filtering if the browser can automatically detect that filtering is happening, and then switch to the other method.

Re:The reason Nokia is able to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

However enabling such a risky feature without user consent is a really bad move and means users should no longer trust Nokia products as much as they have done in the past.

It's not that it's enabled by default, it's that it's <i>the only mode of operation</i> by design. This isn't a full Web browser that needs to parse tag soup or waste resources trying to access highly latent foreign connections. It makes a request for an optimized document from Nokia. That's the usage model, and if you're more concerned with being able to maximize your phone's life because you're in the middle of the jungle and you have minimal access to power or solid lines, this is what you want. If you're in the middle of Paris, London or New York City you're unlikely to be using an S40 phone and are just here to complain about something that doesn't relate to you and you don't want to even try to understand.

One Court Order

[Anonymous Coward]

or subpoena is all it will take and they will be recording all that information without telling anyone.

What countries does Nokia do business in? Do you trust the courts in all of them?

Re:One Court Order

[gtirloni]

As opposed to a subpoena to your first-world ISP which is always ignored or at least fought hard before being accept, right? Yeah, didn't think so...

Re:One Court Order

[0123456]

Uh, my ISP can record all the SSL connections they want, because they can't decrypt what I'm sending.

So are Nokia spending their Microsoft billion on astroturfing Slashdot, or does it just look like they are?

Re:One Court Order

[gtirloni]

1) If that makes you sleep better at night, so be it. I looks like your paranoia is very contained to a few areas.

2) Discrediting the other part in an discussion... not really the best way to win any argument.

3) Feel free to propose technical solutions that don't involve what Nokia, Opera, etc are doing. You might even have a startup idea that will make you rich.

Re:One Court Order

[0123456]

Uh, the technical solution is... drum roll please... don't conduct man in the middle attacks on SSL sessions.

And my technical solution is... never buy a Nokia phone.

As for 'discrediting the other party', anyone who thinks that a third party cracking my SSL session to my bank is no big deal has already discredited themselves. The fact that we have a dozen or people people in this thread saying it's OK is a clear sign of how far Slashdot has sunk.

How?

[Richard_J_N]

Isn't that the whole point of HTTPS, to ensure that a man-in-the-middle attack (in this case, a probably benign proxy) is impossible?
Also, why? Doesn't every website now compress html/css/js with mod_gzip?

Re:How?

[Rich0]

Isn't that the whole point of HTTPS, to ensure that a man-in-the-middle attack (in this case, a probably benign proxy) is impossible?

It is only impossible without the collusion of a trusted certificate authority. When was the last time you reviewed the list on your browser? Oh, and did YOU do anything to determine if any of those organizations were trustworthy.

If you get a mobile device from your mobile provider, there is a pretty good chance that they stuck their own root CA in there somewhere. Maybe they just use it for SSL connections to their own websites/email/etc. But, trusted is trusted in the world of SSL which means they could just MITM every connection you make.

Ditto for any PC you use at work. Chances are your employer has a trusted CA somewhere in there, which means they can MITM any SSL connection you make to any service on the web.

If they didn't actually modify your browser you can probably spot this by pulling up the certificate info for your connection and noting who issued it.

This is why I believe SSL offers a false sense of security. Moving to certificates distributed over DNSSEC would cut out the middlemen, and it would improve security. Only the domain registrar for google.com could tamper with their certificates, for example. That still isn't perfect, but it is better than any CA anywhere on the globe.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, why? Doesn't every website now compress html/css/js with mod_gzip?

Talk to an IT related person next time you see one. They'll break it down for you. Gzip compression isn't magic, you need someone to configure it, and most server admins don't bother.

Re:How?

[h4rr4r]

Chances are your employer does not do that. It is such a huge legal minefield most avoid it. The last thing I need is someone claiming that my proxy server was used to steal their bank details.

Re:How?

[Dodgy G33za]

Mine does (Australian government department). Interestingly they specifically exclude the local banks.

Re:How?

[Richard_J_N]

How is that different from an ordinary server cert? I just got a cert for my own domain; that doesn't let me masquerade as a bank. If I get my browser from Mozilla, how do I know that my ISP isn't snooping? If I'm reading you correctly, you're saying that the entire HTTPS spec is a total wreck, and we'd be better off without it than a false illusion of security?

Re:How?

[robmv]

True, the point is that if you modify the source of Firefox or Chrome to not show a SSL error when the certificate is yours, then you have the situation of the Nokia browser, but that doesn't means SSL is broken because of that

Re:How?

[h4rr4r]

We just kill all https sessions for anyone who is proxied.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

They all start caring once their servers get overloaded.

Re:How?

[Greyfox]

I actually know for a fact that my employer DOES do this, and very explicitly distrust their certificate to insure that any https connection results in a warning. Any https connection going out of the company must trust their certificate to complete. If I claim that their proxy was used to steal my bank details, they'd ask me why I was using company property for personal business. They would probably be doing so while in the process of terminating my employment for violating the "Misuse of company resources" portion of the corporate ethics guidelines that I agreed to follow as a condition of my employment there.

Re:How?

[jimicus]

If I get my browser from Mozilla, how do I know that my ISP isn't snooping?

You trust two things:

1. That Mozilla didn't put the root certificate for an untrustworthy firm into their browser. (Ha! Have you seen the list of root certificates with most browsers these days? Seems everyone and his dog can send their CA certificate in to the browser vendors).
2. That the trustworthy root certificates that are in there will not subsequently be used for nefarious purposes - eg. to sign a wildcard certificate and then hand that over to your ISP.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you work at International Paper in the U.S. (or one of their subsidiaries), they do, and they probably do many places in the U.S. now. Websense appears to make this easy. They claimed this was put in place to prevent people from visiting transparent proxies over SSL.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

True, the point is that if you modify the source of Firefox or Chrome to not show a SSL error when the certificate is yours, then you have the situation of the Nokia browser, but that doesn't means SSL is broken because of that

You don't need to modify any sources. All you need to do is install a certificate and set its trust settings, exactly what Nokia has done to their own browser.

Personally I think the furore is a bit funny. Opera's been doing this for many years, didn't hear anybody complain. If you thought SSL could guarantee security, well, I welcome all your shock and surprise with a patient smile. All SSL can be subverted like this on a whim of a presumably reputable certificate issuer (e.g. Verisign) and a transparent proxy legally or illegally installed anywhere along the way. It's also the mechanism for many corporate gateways, transformation services etc.

No it's not a good idea. It is a spectacularly bad idea, and somebody at Nokia should have known better. But in the grand scheme of things, this is just a gentle reminder that most people don't understand SSL.

Re:How?

[MobyDisk]

So how does your purchasing department work? You can't buy anything without https.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I believe SSL offers a false sense of security. Moving to certificates distributed over DNSSEC would cut out the middlemen, and it would improve security.

Why wouldn't this be exactly the same problem, just a different set of people where you have to trust all of them?

Moxie Marlinspike has a good argument about why DNSSEC isn't really much better, and has a proposed solution.

http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/ssl-and-the-future-of-authenticity/
http://convergence.io/

Re:How?

[Rich0]

Why wouldn't this be exactly the same problem, just a different set of people where you have to trust all of them?

The scope of their authority is at least limited. If I connect to mail.google.com, only those who control the root servers can issue a certificate for .com, only those who control .com can issue a certificate for google.com, and only google.com can issue a certificate for mail.google.com.

Sure, I'd rather not have to trust Verisign to not falsify a google.com certificate, but at least we're down to only one company for any particular domain. The maintainer of .com could not issue .de certificates, and vice-versa.

With current SSL CAs all trust is global. Anybody can issue a certificate for anything.

If I think the government of Estonia is shady then if I don't go to any .ee sites I don't have to worry about them under DNSSEC, but with the current CA system any CA is a source of insecurity.

But hey, I'm not saying it isn't possible to do better still. I just haven't seen any proposals that seem practical - you always need some kind of trusted intermediary to make introductions, even if there are tools to discover certificate changes that can at least help you to know if somebody is going on.

Re:How?

[Rich0]

How is that different from an ordinary server cert? I just got a cert for my own domain; that doesn't let me masquerade as a bank. If I get my browser from Mozilla, how do I know that my ISP isn't snooping? If I'm reading you correctly, you're saying that the entire HTTPS spec is a total wreck, and we'd be better off without it than a false illusion of security?

You aren't a CA. The person who issued you the cert is. THEY CAN masquerade as a bank if they want to.

The issue is more with things like mobile devices - chances are you didn't buy your phone from Mozilla. When the day comes that Ubuntu is selling phones I'd say chances are they'll stick their own CA on them, and thus they could MITM any connection (which isn't to say that they would).

I'm not saying that we're better off without SSL at all - that is as ridiculous as the warnings you get when you connect to a site using a self-signed certificate (which I'd be fine with if they showed up anytime you connected to any site not using SSL). We're just better off with something better than SSL in its current state - such as using DNSSEC to distribute certificates.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually its becoming much much more common. As little as a five years ago you never saw it but now I'd say its pretty common practice for US companies of any size. We make a best effort to NOT break into SSL streams when we can verify the destination ip is a financial institution, (western) government, or medical facility. Otherwise we MTIM. We also make everyone sign computer use agreement that clearly states while we try to protect your privacy accessing those types of resources you should not use company facilities to do so.

We frequently communicate this again, and make everyone aware that any communication on our equipment should be assumed to be recorded and that said recordings/logs are available to multiple persons in IT, management and possibly others at our will; unless explicitly stated otherwise. Those mails go out every month and its verbally relayed during the IT spiel at new hire orientation.

Re:How?

[gl4ss]

Isn't that the whole point of HTTPS, to ensure that a man-in-the-middle attack (in this case, a probably benign proxy) is impossible?
Also, why? Doesn't every website now compress html/css/js with mod_gzip?

there's more to it. like doing part of the layouting on the server as well, dropping image quality and so forth. that's how they manage to render modern pages on phones with as little as 32mbyte of ram and how opera mini manages the same on phones with 4..

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well now, you shouldn't be doing personal banking on company time or on company equipment.....

Re:How?

[PRMan]

They may compress the html/css/js, but the "mini" browsers typically reprocess the images for the tiny screen before sending them down.

Cyanogenmod Tizen or Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

All the more reason to use open source software and not buy phones that have opaque software on them. Cyanogenmod is the way to go. Or maybe in a few months Tizen or Ubuntu.

Re:Cyanogenmod Tizen or Ubuntu

[ssam]

or openmoko.

If you don't like it

[ArhcAngel]

Get a BlackBerry.
Blast them all you want for getting left behind in the app ecosystem but iOS, Android, and WP can't hold a candle to RIM's security.

Potential for Exploiting

[Striikerr]

I think a bigger concern with this type of stuff is the potential for someone to gain access to the decrypted streams. They would have access to a treasure trove of personal information. While this type of activity can come from an external source, the biggest vector is from internal staff. I would not be comfortable having something being operated by Nokia etc. having full access to my sessions. How often do we see headlines describing xx number of people's personal information being compromised... by BIG companies who most would have assumed would be experts at security.. Another big problem with this is that people using these devices ASSUME that their sessions are secured between their end and the end point (a bank, online retailer, etc) because this is what they have been told time and again by experts in trying to educate the masses. If a device is going to intercept these historically secured point to point sessions, a warning / disclaimer should pop up for each session explaining (in clear, short terms) what is happening..
I understand and accept the good intentions and reasoning behind this approach but good intentions have so often been the cause for bad results..

Fowl

[Gaygirlie]

Fowl.

This is a disturbing trend

[devforhire]

I find it disturbing the increasing audacity of large organization who get caught with their hands in the cookie jar and put it off as "I know my hand is in there, but I'm really not going to take a cookie." It reminds me of the Instagram "Sign over the rights for us to sell your pictures, but we're not going to sell your work."

Chicken

[Anonymous Coward]

Buck buck

illegal here

[Anonymous Coward]

if this were in the UK then this would be illegal under RIPA. Nokia is a third party (i.e. they aren't a network provider) to their interception of this traffic would be illegal without a court order or informed connect.

Re:illegal here

[houstonbofh]

It may be illegal in the US as well, since they are breaking encryption... DMCA

Re:illegal here

[ArhcAngel]

It may be illegal in the US as well

Just like warrantless wiretapping...oh wait!

Re:illegal here

[ssam]

it depends if you count this as breaking encryption.

its more like them running a browser on there server and giving you remote access to this browser. so its not 'breaking' encryption any more than you are when you visit the a HTTPS site.

Re:illegal here

[Shimbo]

Likewise, its debatable whether it counts as 'interception' for the purposes of RIPA.

Re:illegal here

[gl4ss]

It may be illegal in the US as well, since they are breaking encryption... DMCA

they're not breaking it. it's just how it works. it's two separate encrypted connections with them rendering the pages into their special sauce code which gets rendered on the phone.

this article could be summed up as "nokia's proxy web browser does exactly what it claims".

somehow people aren't claiming that citrix is breaking dmca if you visit a https site with a browser running in it..

Re:illegal here

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be illegal in the US as well, since they are breaking encryption... DMCA

Since phone models from almost all major handset makers, including Motorola, Samsung,etc, has done exactly the same for many years (through pre-installing Opera Mini), I doubt it.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!

[Anonymous Coward]

If a "browser" does its work inside their remote server then what you have is a remote viewer and they are the ones with the real browser. The problem is that all the security is in the actual browser part, and none in the remote viewer.

RIM isn't any better

[feld]

except your email goes through RIM's mail servers. You don't download your email from your mail server to your phone directly. RIM could be reading all your email.

Re:RIM isn't any better

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

If you're using BES, it's all encrypted - it goes through RIM's servers, but RIM can't read it.

Hence the big kerfuffle about governments insisting on access to BES data, and RIM's refusal to give it -- they literally can't.

Consumer email/BIS access is a different story. RIM does have access to that, and presumably government as well (similar to what any other provider gives).

Re:RIM isn't any better

[ArhcAngel]

You obviously know nothing of BB security using a BES

Re:RIM isn't any better

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that they have provided access, to several governments.

Re:RIM isn't any better

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Except that they have provided access, to several governments.

They have provided access to consumer data to (presumably) every government that wants it, the same as any other carrier does.

They don't have the ability to provide access to BES-encrypted data. They themselves don't have access - it's encrypted with a private key specific to each instance of BES.

Root cause is elsewhere

[pysiak]

Dear god. Is this what corporations do instead of serious engineering work to debloat the network stacks, drivers and hardware or start implementing things like TCP Fast Open? :-| Another example where fixing bufferbloat needs a strong front because people will start doing the wrong things when trying to fix something. Just as BitTorrent-induced latency was made the culprit of slow networks and caused people to think it's good to go away from Net Neutrality and charge premium for a premium experience. Nonsense!

So, all of you paid astroturfers...

[Anonymous Coward]

...who were claiming that this was perfectly innocent and harmless in the last post on the subject. Care to weigh in this time? Seeing as how many of you claimed that Nokia couldn't, or wouldn't, do anything of the sort with SSL traffic out of fear of "jail" and other non-existent threats? Is it still perfectly good and innocent now that they're actively _decrypting_ your SSL traffic?

Re:So, all of you paid astroturfers...

[Frankie70]

Is it still perfectly good and innocent now that they're actively _decrypting_ your SSL traffic?

How can they do compression without decrypting? And MITM cannot be done without decrypting. You have decrypt before re-encrypt.

CORRECTION

[girlintraining]

Wrong profile linked. Correct profile. Stupid misclick. Ugh. In other news, his background is not a software developer, but a network admin with some cisco experience. Like many in that area of IT, there is some exposure to security. I wouldn't call him an expert in MIM attacks, but he's not a layperson either.

"In a secure fashion..."

[eth1]

...my ass

Right up until the government shows up and demands that they send all the traffic to them first, and forbids them from notifying their customers.

Re:"In a secure fashion..."

[Luckyo]

At which point customers will have problems beyond the scope of the issue at hand. Far beyond.

Re:"In a secure fashion..."

[gl4ss]

...my ass

Right up until the government shows up and demands that they send all the traffic to them first, and forbids them from notifying their customers.

maybe you should use something else then. but if you want to get around iron curtains today then this and operas mini provide you an easy way to that.. these proxies sit behind unfiltered connections to internet.

Re:"In a secure fashion..."

[Anonymous Coward]

I am afraid we are already at that point and within that scope.

Big Bro? Iszzat You?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like Big Brother got caught with his hand in the cookie jar yet again.
This all sounds a lot like Homeland Security snooping to me. I am quite confident that I am not the only one to see it that way,either.
Why else would you have to Actively Decrypt the data, if not for spying purposes?
Compression for speed? Really? You expect us to buy that?

Re:Big Bro? Iszzat You?

[Luckyo]

Yes? Unless you're a tinfoil hat type, you likely know that this has been done for about a decade by opera.

I used to use opera mini ages ago on my old symbian phone. It's a really nice tool to save network traffic costs.

Pointless post

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no point to this post. If you don't trust Nokia, then why are you using their phone? The same story could be run for *every* manufacturer of a phone or web browser. You have to trust the manufacturer, otherwise it's game over. Do you think that proxying traffic is the only way that the phone maker can spy on you? Naive.

Dear Nokia...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia executives:
Please send me all your super sensitive and secret documents. I promise I won't look at them.

Re:Dear Nokia...

[Luckyo]

Apple executives:
Please send me all your super sensitive and secret documents. I promise I won't look at them.
Google executives:
Please send me all your super sensitive and secret documents. I promise I won't look at them.

Do you seriously think that any of the widespread modern smartphones don't have far, FAR better ways of spying on you if they wanted to then proxy-browser?

Any browser publisher is the same way

[tepples]

This is some scary shit, basically you ought to treat HTTPS on your Nokia device like HTTP, unless you really really trust that Nokia knows what they are doing and how to keep a secret.

Any web page retrieved through HTTPS is parsed into an unencrypted DOM within the web browser. You have to trust that the browser publisher knows what it is doing and how to keep a secret.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[0123456]

Yeah, because having the browser display the page locally is just exactly the same as having a remote server decrypt your connection as a man in the middle.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing stops the browser from transmitting information to a third-party server.

=>

You have to trust that the browser publisher knows what it is doing and how to keep a secret.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[tnk1]

The point is... you can find a browser that doesn't fuck you over and use that. Yes, they can be bad, but for things like, say, open source browsers, you can read the code and see what it is doing. Or you can find some security researcher who will find all of those vulnerabilities and tell you about them.

You have zero control and little transparency even, when Nokia decides that it would be just great to decrypt your traffic. I understand that faster traffic is good, but a third party decrypting for any reason it completely defeats the purpose of encrypting it to begin with. You might as well not.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I understand, the browser is not doing HTTPS at all to the bank/docter etc, its doing HTTP or HTTPS to the nokia proxy and proxy is doing the HTTPS to bank/doctor. In this scenario HTTPS is not broken, the phone is. Total fail Nokia

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[tepples]

The point is... you can find a browser that doesn't fuck you over and use that.

And you can find a phone that doesn't take advantage of you and use that. The trouble is, this sort of "doesn't take advantage of you" isn't exactly a selling point among the mass market, which means a product like this won't be produced for a mass-market price.

for things like, say, open source browsers, you can read the code and see what it is doing.

But do most people verify that the binary they download matches the source code? And do they diverse-double-compile their compiler toolchain to make sure it isn't infected with a "Reflections on Trusting Trust"-style virus? I'm under the impression most end users take this on faith.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[mlw4428]

Not true. If it's open source YOU have the power to stop it from doing anything like that, by reviewing the source code and making changes wherever needed. A third-party server run by a multi-national corporation is unlikely to allow the same level of access.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there are some things you have to trust.

But trusting one thing doesn't automatically mean you should trust another. The fewer entities you have to trust, the better.

So, trusting your browser is inescapable. Maybe choosing an open-source browser is justified for this reason alone.

Trusting your provider with sensitive (normally-encrypted) data (in plain text) is completely escapable.

People should assume that Nokia is farming the unencrypted data and using everything in it as part of their consumer profile, and further that they are shipping the data in real time to government tracking and enforcement databases. To assume any less is naive.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[smpoole7]

> If it's open source YOU have the power to stop it from doing anything like that

In principle and theory, yes. In practice, maybe not. You would almost certainly use libraries installed on the device, unless you plan to roll your own from scratch (and that's going to eat a lot of SRAM). They could still sniff and snoop at the library level.

Or, they could simply sniff and snoop whatever is displayed on the screen. Your open-source browser is "clean," but Nokia is, in essence, a snoop looking over your shoulder. Character-recognition software is small and fast nowadays.

Waiting for a Slashdot story about how THAT is happening, by the way. Some manufacturers and providers are already admitting that they can access the mike and the camera on your smartphone to "see" and "hear" what you're up to ...

Ergo, I have no doubt whatsoever that even using an open-source browser won't protect you. The only real answer is to ensure that you never do anything really sensitive on a smartphone. I certainly don't.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Minwee]

Yeah, because having the browser display the page locally is just exactly the same as having a remote server decrypt your connection as a man in the middle.

Is this your first time using a web browser on a mobile device?

Data has been being received, rendered and compressed by remote servers for years. Opera billed it as a major feature of their browser in 2005, but even then it was nothing new.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Applekid]

The problem then is that the software AND the hardware are closed.

But I think you're on the right path. Nobody is going to be able to build a phone from scratch without relying on other people's work, from the API libraries to the silicon, and have it be even remotely functional.

Modern technology is basically billions of man hours distilled into a single object, repeated multiple times into a useful device. How many of those hours have roots in being malicious, or a snoop, or a government planting seeds?

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

"YOU have the power to stop it from doing anything like that, by reviewing the source code and making changes wherever needed" – ONLY if you have the time AND expertise to review said source code, or the money to pay a team of experts to do it for you. Even then, you're probably trusting that the binary version of the application is an accurate translation of the public source code version; that the developer or the compiler didn't sneak something "extra" into the binary that isn't there in the PUBLISHED copy of the source. There's a chance that this assumption might be wrong.

See Ken Thompson's classic Communications of the ACM article, "Reflections on Trusting Trust" ("No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code.")

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

We do take this on faith and we should. The Fedora 17 I'm running was downloaded from Fedora 15... this process continues back in time to RedHat 7.3. That's when malware would have had to infect my sha1 and sha256 sums to fake me out for the last 20 versions worth of upgrades and land me with a corrupted compiler today. That's just paranoid.

If you:
      Remain a security conscious admin
      Always check the software you install
      Use only other security aware people as sources for compilers and O/S...

You'll be OK.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[gl4ss]

From what I understand, the browser is not doing HTTPS at all to the bank/docter etc, its doing HTTP or HTTPS to the nokia proxy and proxy is doing the HTTPS to bank/doctor. In this scenario HTTPS is not broken, the phone is. Total fail Nokia

it's doing a special protocol to nokias servers(encrypted).
just like opera mini has been doing for years.

they did this as a feature catchup. also it enables them to actually RENDER THE FUCKING PAGES THE PHONE WOULDN'T OTHERWISE BE ABLE TO. that's how these light browsers manage to do their magic on really shitty hw.

sometimes slashdot feels like full of fucking idiots who have been living under 324 feet of rock without internet.

if you don't like it, buy a phone that costs more than ninety bucks(no subs).

here's a shocking reveal of opera mini passing all data through their servers on slashdot from 2006 http://tech.slashdot.org/story/06/01/24/227227/opera-mini-mobile-browser-officially-released

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[MartinG]

Also your eyes get to see the unencrypted content. You have to trust that your eyes know what they are doing and how to keep a secret.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[tepples]

That's when malware would have had to infect my sha1 and sha256 sums to fake me out for the last 20 versions worth of upgrades

Or just sneak a backdoor into the official tree. Once.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

And you can find a phone that doesn't take advantage of you

Which part of "Microsoft Product" did you not understand?

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[tnk1]

At a certain point, if you are going to have control over the browser to that extent, you need to be responsible for either maintaining the security standards so that HTTPS works as advertised, or you need to make it abundantly clear that you, as the provider, can now read their encrypted traffic.

And, let's be clear here, if someone compiled a binary that did not match the source code, I do have the option of compiling myself, but it is more likely that someone who is more likely to do it, like a security researcher, will do so. Can you trust binaries completely? Of course not. Is it equivalent to shrugging your shoulders and saying that "oh well, Nokia fucked with me, but since there is a small chance it could happen to my browser so I guess it's fine"? Absolutely not.

It is one thing for a binary to become corrupted and compromised when a provider in good faith, inadvertently creates a bad binary. It's entirely another thing for a provider to do that on purpose and offer HTTPS traffic which they know is fatally compromised just so they can improve their data transmission rates.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[fredprado]

Which is remarkably difficult to be done and not be noticed by anyone... Actually "remarkably difficult " severely understate the difficulty and unlikelihood of the feat.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[mlw4428]

"In principle and theory, yes. In practice, maybe not. You would almost certainly use libraries installed on the device, unless you plan to roll your own from scratch (and that's going to eat a lot of SRAM). They could still sniff and snoop at the library level."

While I agree with you, I think most of the open source browsers (such as Firefox) tend to rely on other open source libs.

"Or, they could simply sniff and snoop whatever is displayed on the screen. Your open-source browser is "clean," but Nokia is, in essence, a snoop looking over your shoulder. "

Well device security is a bit different than software security. There's open source hardware, but generally it's not nearly as nice as the proprietary stuff. Of course then we get into other aspects of hardware security (like using a can of CO2 and freezing the ram chips, removing them, and reading the data off of them) and whatnot. In truth one really shouldn't expect a grain of privacy when you interact with the internet unless you're viewing a static web page full of Loreum Ipsum and then no one cares. At least that's generally my opinion and I've just figured that as long as I don't do anything illegal (or illegal enough to be important) than I'm reasonably alright with the lack of true privacy.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Belial6]

Your wife gets named at home. At some poin you have to trust she isn't banging random men. If you find out that she has been getting naked in the storeroom every time she goes to Starbucks, you have a problem.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing stops the browser from transmitting information to a third-party server.

Really? My desktop firewall does.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as my eyes don't tell my mouth they can keep a secret just fine.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[shutdown -p now]

The difference is that Opera Mini is explicitly advertised as a "proxy browser". If you choose to use it, you know what it is about, and what the implied security risks are.

Here, we're talking about a stock browser in a smartphone, doing this by default with no warnings given to the user. I don't care why they thing it's a good idea, it's a major compromise of security.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Runaway1956]

"Nobody is going to be able to build a phone from scratch without relying on other people's work"

Which leads us to the point where we ask the quesion: "Who do I want to trust?" I don't trust anything Microsoft. I don't trust any of the phone manufacturers. I - trust, I guess - Google somewhat. At least as far as I can throw them. I trust Debian. I trust Linux. Who else do I trust? And, how much do I trust them? I certainly don't trust ANY telco in the United States. They are probably less trustworthy than Microsoft, Apple, Google, plus any three telephone manufacturers you care to name. When Big Gubbermint says "Roll over", the telcos roll with a will. At least Google drags their feet, bitches and moans, and throws a little bit of a fit.

Who to trust? I just don't think that I'm going to trust my telephone. I don't browse on it, I don't bank, I don't do much of anything. Two thirds of the time, it is turned off.

You people with the banking apps have fun, I'll just sit in my corner of paranoia, thank you very much.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[spongman]

you trust Google over Microsoft?

one of those companies has a business model that relies on gathering as much information about you that it can and selling it to advertisers.

the other one sells software.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

it's doing a special protocol to nokias servers(encrypted).
just like opera mini has been doing for years.

they did this as a feature catchup. also it enables them to actually RENDER THE FUCKING PAGES THE PHONE WOULDN'T OTHERWISE BE ABLE TO. that's how these light browsers manage to do their magic on really shitty hw.

sometimes slashdot feels like full of fucking idiots who have been living under 324 feet of rock without internet.

Well let's make a deal, you tell me how to steal my neighbor's wifi through 98.7552 m of rock, and then I'll read up on ubiquitous dumbphone browsing tech AND significant figures! ;P

Yeah, seriously, the only reason I come to /. anymore is for that feeling of superiority I get watching the drooling horde.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[smpoole7]

> The problem then is that the software AND the hardware are closed.

Dead on the money. In an ideal world, there would be open standards. I could download my choice of a compatible mobile OS, build from source and install it without any fears that it might not work on the hardware, and without fear that my service provider could hassle me for not using their crap.

I don't think that'll happen, though.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[smpoole7]

As I said above, I don't trust any of them. None. Nada.

I trust Linux and KDE on my desktop at home, in a home office that only my wife has access to. That's where I do my banking and online shopping.

I have an old nasty credit card with a low limit that I use when I just must download an app on my smartphone (Android, Samsung hardware, thus Google Play). But that's it. No banking apps, no shopping apps, no Latest Thing! apps on my phone.

And I never, ever send sensitive email or texts from that thing, either.

I'm a law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide. But I hide it anyway just because it ain't "Their" bidness. :)

(Hey, that'd make a great tag line. Hmmm ... )

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[the_B0fh]

"context" is a useful concept.

Unless your phone tunnels all traffic through your desktop.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[sdsucks]

Any web page retrieved through HTTPS is parsed into an unencrypted DOM within the web browser. You have to trust that the browser publisher knows what it is doing and how to keep a secret.

You're comparing a locally run application (which is much more easily audited) to datacenter(s) run by a large multi-national corporation? Really?

I suppose you're going to tell me now that Nokia will happily let any individual come in and audit their datacenter?

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Runaway1956]

*cough* Bing! *cough* MSN *cough* messanger *cough* cloud *cough cough cough*

Slashdotters, anyone who believes that MS does NOT gather your information, please raise your hands. Maybe it's proper that I point out here, that MS has reached that corporate "age" where they aren't going to grow a lot, or very fast, doing the same thing they've done since they were incorporated. It's time to diversify, moving into new fields. There is room for growth based on their old business model, but that is slowing. It won't continue indefinitely.

Can't find the article I was thinking of at the moment, but this one should provide food for thought:
http://wraltechwire.com/business/tech_wire/opinion/story/3810948/

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[spongman]

i'm not saying who does or does not do this. i'm just pointing out which company's whole business model is based around doing exactly that.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[oldlurker]

The difference is that Opera Mini is explicitly advertised as a "proxy browser". If you choose to use it, you know what it is about, and what the implied security risks are.

Here, we're talking about a stock browser in a smartphone, doing this by default with no warnings given to the user. I don't care why they thing it's a good idea, it's a major compromise of security.

Opera Mini is pre-installed on a number of models from Samsung, Motorola, LG and others. I had a phone a few years ago that came with Opera Mini, I can not remember it giving any special warnings. http://tech2.in.com/news/mobile-phones/samsung-feature-phones-come-preinstalled-with-opera-mini/284642

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[shutdown -p now]

That sounds just as bad as what Nokia is doing here, and should be treated the same.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

Nope, they can read your brain now, sorta. Getting there though.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[oldlurker]

That sounds just as bad as what Nokia is doing here, and should be treated the same.

Agree! My point exactyly with pointing this out is that this is a very broad issue that needs broader attention than just the fuck Nokia circle jerk happening here, based on a very uninformed blog post.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

you trust Google over Microsoft?

one of those companies has a business model that relies on gathering as much information about you that it can and selling it to advertisers.

the other one sells software.

It is shocking that this kind of misinformation gets rated insightful. Your misinformation doesn't get any more honest by only being hinted rather than being stated directly.

You are implying that Google is collecting information about its users and selling that information. That is simply not true.

A few people are deliberately spreading that information even though they know it is not true. That is called lying. And a lot of people have heard it a lot of times and not checked the reliability of the sources and then just repeat it thinking they are saying something which is true. That is called being gullible.

I don't know which of those two groups you fall into.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are confusing corporations as a single person, something I trust about microsoft and others I am wary of, ditto for google.
Trust is a multifaceted thing.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[fatphil]

I know that my eyes haven't been hacked.

I don't know that nokia's (opera's, apple's, amazon's, ...) server hasn't been hacked.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

but but ... googel cannot do evil! Seriously speaking while google is untrustworthy, Micro$oft is at least as much so because of their horrible track record. http://wayback.archive.org/web/20120605103241/http://www.msversus.org/

But the good thing is you don't have to trust neither of those. Nor apple or amazon. Do not surrender your freedom!

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[peawormsworth]

you trust Google over Microsoft?

one of those companies has a business model that relies on gathering as much information about you that it can and selling it to advertisers.

the other one sells software.

Microsoft collects your information. It just doesnt do it as well as Google. One of the main benefits of Google over Microsoft is that they support open standards. If you were a web programmer, then you would understand why google is superior to Microsoft in terms of being "open". As a programmer, you can decide whether to code for Microsoft products or you can code for everyone else including Google. I sure would love it if Microsoft software disappeared tomorrow, because it would cut my work load in half immediately.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[peawormsworth]

Maybe it's proper that I point out here, that MS has reached that corporate "age" where they aren't going to grow a lot, or very fast, doing the same thing they've done since they were incorporated. It's time to diversify, moving into new fields. There is room for growth based on their old business model, but that is slowing. It won't continue indefinitely.

Right. If you say that Google collects more then Microsoft, you are simply stating that Google has many more users of their service then Microsoft does.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[spongman]

i am a programmer, web and otherwise. i have also worked in the advertising industry. i know what i'm talking about.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that Opera Mini is explicitly advertised as a "proxy browser". If you choose to use it, you know what it is about, and what the implied security risks are.

Oh. Absolutely. 100% of Opera's users understood the technology and "security risks" due to it.
Ok. Well. Yes. Opera never was that popular...

Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia says none of their staff is looking at unencrypted data.

They don't say "no one", my guess is they are handing off that data to other "entities".

Re:Interesting

[PPH]

Where is this "other entity" of which you speak?

No doubt, everyone is thinking NSA/CIA/FBI. But Nokia isn't a US company and there's no reason to expect that they'll intercept US user's data on a US server. Or an Indian user' inside India. It would be a simple matter for them to direct HTTPS traffic through a nation with little regard (or laws) for privacy protection or espionage.

Benjamin Franklin

[Frankie70]

Wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who said "They who can give up essential security to obtain a little speed increase, deserve neither security nor speed"?

Re:Benjamin Franklin

[GodfatherofSoul]

Not relevant to this story. That quote is about people surrendering rights because they think the net effect will be safety. This is like your postman steaming open your envelopes and claiming he's only looking for anthrax. Nokia users aren't volunteering their secure channels to get some level of protection.

Re:Benjamin Franklin

[Frankie70]

That quote is about people surrendering rights because they think the net effect will be safety

May be you and I are and referring to the same quote by Franklin. I my quote he talks neither about rights nor about safety.

Re:Benjamin Franklin

[Frankie70]

Meant to write "May be you and I are not referring to the same quote by Franklin. Im my quote he talks neither about rights nor about safety.

Re:Benjamin Franklin

[GodfatherofSoul]

We're thinking of the same quote. If you give up rights/liberty/freedom for safety, you won't get either.

Re:Benjamin Franklin

[Frankie70]

No, I am not. Mine talks about speed and security through ssl.

Re:Benjamin Franklin

[JasperHW]

Ben Franklin doesn't know crap about encryption
-Abraham Lincoln

Re:Benjamin Franklin

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you Mr. Data... that will be all.

Apple also admits its software has access to data

[Anonymous Coward]

... if you have private data on Apple software.

At the risk of rehashing the drowned-out explanations from yesterday, Nokia admits this *on the box*. This isn't like adding a wild card cert into a Web browser: this is exactly the behaviour that Nokia advertises for these devices on their Web site, on the box, in the manual, and in their marketing material. This is the same thing Opera Mini has been doing for about a decade.

This isn't a full-blown on-device browser. This is a viewer for data that is pulled and rendered "in the cloud" as the kids say today, compressed and sent to end user devices in an optimized manner (just like Opera Mini, or Opera in "Turbo" mode iirc). This is a browser included on lower-end (lower spec, lower-developed markets generally) phones by Nokia and designed to reduce costs where bandwidth is poor and expensive. This used to be normal in the first world as well (if you consider Europe/US first-world in mobile telephony).

Re:Mind Control: Targeted Individuals (TIs)

[cursingflashor]

tldr;

DMCA?

[Progman3K]

Doesn't this violate the DMCA?

Re:DMCA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed! Let's see this bat shit crazy law being used for good for once!

It's easy when you're god

[Immerman]

Not really, it's relatively trivial to establish a man in the middle attack if you completely control the communication channel. A requests a secure channel to B from C. Instead C establishes a secure channel with A *claiming* that it's B, while also establishing a secure channel to B claiming that it's A. Theoretically any node your connection passes through could do this, but given the fluidity of internet routing algorithms only the ISPs at either end are likely to be able to actually pull it off. Or any routers between them and the actual computers that are doing the talking of course.

That's why they tell you never to do internet banking, shopping, etc. at an internet cafe or other open hotspot - a fully controlled malicious data channel can do whatever it wants, and how are you going to detect it? All the validation has to go through them.

In the case where you have vendor-controlled browsers or proxy servers it's even easier, but basically those are just additional nodes your data is guaranteed to pass through.

Re:It's easy when you're god

[FrangoAssado]

It's sad that this is modded so high; it's completely wrong.

A requests a secure channel to B from C. Instead C establishes a secure channel with A *claiming* that it's B, while also establishing a secure channel to B claiming that it's A.

You're describing a MITM attack, which is prevented by SSL and TLS by using certificates -- C can only fool A into thinking it's B if C knows B's private key (in which case, C has essentially stolen B's identity).

What happens in Nokia phone's case is that the browser happily trusts C to forward things to B without looking at what's being transmitted (the browser accepts C's certificate authority).

Re:It's easy when you're god

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow what a bullshit. How to hell this post got +5 Insigthful, with a complete lack of understaning of the toppic, i have no idea.
So you say every ISP could decrypt every https session of its subscriber? Hint: they can't.
You're describing a normal man in the middle attack. Https protects you against this attack vector, as long as your browser/OS isn't compromised, eg with malicious root CA's.
Google "Certificate authority" and "man in the middle attack"

Re:It's easy when you're god

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not true. This exactly what certificates are for. If you control the browser (and hence which certs are trusted) you can detect MITM attacks at C.

You should indeed never trust someone else's browser (i.e. internet cafe) but using someone else's connection is relatively safe

Re:It's easy when you're god

[Immerman]

Quite right, I'm not sure what I was thinking. Obviously my network security knowledge has is a bit rusty.

To be fair, explicitly trusting an agent C that completely controls your communication channel does make a MITM attack *really* easy. Let this be a lesson going forward - be wary trusting certificates from anyone with control over your communication channel itself. I would think that even then a secure browser would likely be able to recognize that something fishy was happening, no idea if they're currently looking for it though. I'm sure after this little debacle they will.

Re:It's easy when you're god

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens is that the Nokia featurephone does not support http or https and does not have a full html parser or display engine. Those features are supported by the Nokia proxy server, which communicates with the phone through a proprietary Nokia protocol (encrypted).

It's a documented and advertised feature

[nedlohs]

If you don't trust Nokia to not snoop on your data then why are you carrying around a device made by Nokia that contains a camera and a microphone and a cellular connection to the internet (and probably a gps though I don't know the details of Nokia's phones)?

Re:It's a documented and advertised feature

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't trust Nokia to not snoop on your data then why are you carrying around a device made by Nokia

I don't.

I carry a device (blackberry) made by a trustworthy company (Research In Motion) that has been tested, audited & certified:

http://us.blackberry.com/business/topics/security/certifications.html

Apple & android have been tested, audited & certified by ... nobody.

It's sad that so many people don't care about security, especially when they are putting their entire life on their smartphone.

Re:It's a documented and advertised feature

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just Nokia but anyone who may ever buy their intellectual property too, at least in the US anyways.

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/09/borders.shtm
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/09/borders.shtm

In case you don't want to read, Borders goes bust, sells user data to B&N, FTC steps up citing some concerns regarding privacy etc, there is agreement to require customers approval. All good right? Except that it's B&N that contacts the customers regarding the keeping/use of the data. In fact you have to visit the BN.com site to opt-out and protect your privacy. I wonder how much the opt-out database is worth after that, you know if B&N goes you may just have to opt-out of having your opt-out sold.

Re:It's a documented and advertised feature

[Anonymous Coward]

I will also save you from reading by giving the same link twice instead of this one too http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/10/bordersbarnes.shtm . Good thing no one reads these things ;)

Re:It's a documented and advertised feature

[Anonymous Coward]

GPS isnt required as they have a giant triangulation system called cell towers.

Re:It's a documented and advertised feature

[Anonymous Coward]

and probably a gps though I don't know the details of Nokia's phones

Bless. They've had GPS in their phones since 2006/2007 at least. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N95. Maybe you should familiarise yourself with the spec of their latest phone?

Re:It's a documented and advertised feature

[nedlohs]

Why would I care?

How is this not a violation of some law?

[Peter Simpson]

The user makes what he believes to be an encrypted connection. Nokia interposes their server into this connection without the user's knowledge and decrypts their data (both ways), and then claims this is perfectly OK, since they're doing it to optimize bandwidth or such. whether they make use of the information or not, they are intercepting and decrypting a connection the user believes to be private.

This seems awfully like wiretapping and unauthorized interception of data communications. If it isn't illegal to decrypt an encrypted transaction if you are not the intended recipient, perhaps it should be. I'd wager it *is* illegal under EU data protection laws, but IANAL. It's probably OK in the US, due to some obscure law permitting just this activity, passed at the request of some large corporation.

Re:How is this not a violation of some law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's exactly what the software is advertising that it does. Think of it as routing at Layer-6 and compare that to intercepting radio/IP packets at layers 1, 2 or 3. It's what it's designed to do, and for a reasonable reason that's advertised.

Yes, if it surreptitiously did this without telling you, it'd be evil. I'd even say you'd have a reasonable complaint to be angry about how Nokia (and HP/Palm) handle creating new mail accounts on their devices because it tries to route you through their servers to have them manage the direct connections--that's *much* more scary to me and *much* more poorly documented.

This, however, shouldn't be a story because they're doing exactly what they say, and for a valid reason whether or not it applies to you.

Re:How is this not a violation of some law?

[Peter Simpson]

If it were only that Nokia is passing every packet through their proxy, I would be confused but not angry. They are *decoding* encrypted traffic, which the user (correctly or not) believes to be private. The decryption is the problem. More so because the user has no inkling that the encrypted traffic is being decrypted by anyone but the intended recipient, and thus believes their information is still secure.

I expect lawsuits and investigations in the EU. Probably not in the US, but the EU data protection laws are very strict and this sort of thing isn't going to go down well at all.

Kindle does this too

[WolfgangPG]

This seems like it will be common place as cloud based web rendering becomes popular to save people "bandwidth".

Kindle: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking/amazons-kindle-fire-silk-browser-has-serious-security-concerns/1516

Amazon Silk's terms and conditions state that Amazon will keep your the Web addresses you visit, the IP addresses you use, and your Kindle Fire's unique media access control (MAC) addresses for 30 days. With that information, Amazon can track your every Web move.

On top of that, when you lock into a site that uses Secure-Socket Layer (SSL) or HTTPS for security, EC2 will handle that for you as well. According to the Silk FAQ, "We will establish a secure connection from the cloud to the site owner on your behalf for page requests of sites using SSL (e.g. https://siteaddress.com./ Amazon Silk will facilitate a direct connection between your device and that site. Any security provided by these particular sites to their users would still exist."

Amazon will do this by acting as man-in-the-middle (MTM) SSL proxy. That's fine if you trust Amazon. I'm not sure I do. I'm not crazy about extending my trust to any large corporation. I have to trust my ISP, they connect me with the net, I don't want to extend my trust much farther than my ISP.

Law Enforcement Use?

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens with random law enforcement officials subpoena Nokia's IT department?

WRONG.

[Anonymous Coward]

The browser here has a Nokia cert pre-installed AND uses that cert to make you THINK you are talking to the bank when in actual fact you are talking to Nokia AND will ALSO lie to you about the certificate being used to secure your connection (tell you you're using the cert given by your bank when you're actually using the cert given by Nokia).

So you need a browser to
a) install their cert.
b) make it impossible to REMOVE that cert.
c) make the browser LIE about which cert it is using.
d) make the browser always go to your machine where you do the MITM attack.

If you include the client pc...

[Anonymous Coward]

in "channel", yes. However...

The whole point of SSL is that you don't have to trust the communications channel (i.e. everything
between your box and the server at the other end). The magic is that the client can encrypt a secret
using the server's public key that only the server can decode. This secret is used to generate subsequent
keys, so if the server cert and public key are valid (i.e. correct AND PRIVATE) then you are sure you
are communicating with the server and only that server. The whole point of the key exchange is to prevent MITM attacks,
which it does if done correctly -- i.e. the client only has certs it trusts, and the server doesn't share
its private keys with anyone.

You can do even better with smartcards.

Re:If you include the client pc...

[Immerman]

A good point. Yes, as long as you can get their public key through a trusted channel you're good to go. You still need to start a chain of trust somewhere though - if you start out on an "evil" channel there's nothing to stop C from providing their own public key, claiming that it belongs to B, and nothing has fundamentally changed. I presume browsers typically ship with at least a few trusted keys for certification authorities to get you started, so as long as your browser itself hasn't been compromised you should be good to go (and if it has been compromised security keys are the least of your concern)

Re:If you include the client pc...

[Anonymous Coward]

I presume browsers typically ship with at least a few trusted keys for certification authorities to get you started

Welcome to 1995, when Netscape shipped with SSL and a CA from Verisign.

Free traffic visibility to their network

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's a feature"

Link to ZDNet Nokia story

[SternisheFan]

ZDNet story link below. Basically says it's more a p.r. nightmare for Nokia not disclosing their practice. Also, since Finland is part of the EU, Nokia would get bankrupted if they were found to be diverting data for nefarious reasons.

http://www.zdnet.com/nokia-hijacks-mobile-browser-traffic-decrypts-https-data-7000009655/

So those previously claiming "Not MITM"

[Anonymous Coward]

So those previously claiming "Not MITM, Nothing To See", where are you?

Where are you saying "OK, I was wrong"?

If that told us about this

[Anonymous Coward]

If that had told us about this, then there wouldn't have been any posts saying "This isn't a MITM". Nobody using that very page as "proof" that this isn't a MITM attack.

If you had posted that this was a non story or false previously, you are now proof of your own error.

Government Agencies - Announced

[nauseous]

We only require Nokia to decrpt the data so we can log all user activities that's all. It's used for CIA, FBI and other third party agencies but it's safe.

Broken by design

[jamesh]

I get how it all works, but what happens when the real endpoint certificate isn't trusted by Noikia's proxy? If your browser sees Nokia's certificate, and already trusts it, you have no visibility to the validity of the certificate on the website you are trying to access. Nokia's proxy will either fail if the certificate isn't trusted (according to _their_ list of trusted CA's, not yours) or always succeed without telling the user that the certificate is invalid (eg because dns poisoning has lead you to a Russian website that looks exactly like your bank). Neither way is consistent with the current browsing experience where the browser says "hey this certificate isn't currently trusted. What do you want to do about it?"

In a corporate setting it is quite reasonable to run your own private certificate authority and distribute the CA to your own devices, but it seems not if one of those devices is a Nokia.

Re:Broken by design

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

I would like to know this as well. Someone with a relevant Nokia phone please visit a site with a bad cert and tell us what happens. Is there a warning and does it not go to the site immediately?

Re:Broken by design

[countach]

Good question. If they did it "right" they would ask the user what to do, the same as in a normal browser. Something tells me that any company stupid enough to do something like this might not be doing a good job of it.

Trusting the root CA

[tepples]

Who audits the datacenters of the major SSL CAs? The trust given to the operator of an HTTPS proxy isn't that much more than the trust granted to Symantec or Comodo or Go Daddy or StartCom or any other root CA.

It's fraud.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are pretending to be your bank to you, and pretending to be you to your bank.

This is illegal.

Twice.

So they don't do compression on HTTPS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Big whoop.

Really, why do they HAVE to do compression?

Your post is rather like telling the Officer "If I don't go 140mph, then how am I supposed to get to where I'm going in half an hour?".

Re:So they don't do compression on HTTPS.

[Frankie70]

Same reason Opera also does it https://plus.google.com/114753028665775786510/posts/4s1YbzcCYPB

No Wonder MS bought Noiki out.

[Nyder]

They wanted access to all that encrypted (now decrypted) data.

They don't understand HTTPS at all!

[krisamico]

From their response, it is clear that they still do not understand what secure connections are for. They seem to want to assure customers that their data is not examined or stored by the company at all, which is hardly even relevant. The point of https is to establish a secure connection with two endpoints. Period. I would not worry about Nokia, but some government or criminal syndicate using Nokia's proxy security hole to ruin my life or spy on me. There are a few outfits doing this with https now, and they don't understand why https wants to work the way that it does!

Re:No harm = no..... foul*

[Anonymous Coward]

I am embarrassingly, British. In origin as well as decent. Unfortunately however I suffer from dyslexia, I have friends who despite not suffering dyslexia would proudly state that “dyslexia is just an excuse for bad grammar”. Getting mistaken between two words that look similar and sound the same yet have different meanings is common, although usually solved by a quick Google if I’m not being lazy. In this case it could have saved me some embarrassment, however word could have also been more helpful in pointing out the elephant, or should I say poultry in the room regarding that last sentence.

So please be patient with those people you come across who may be dyslexic, especially if they spell most things correctly, they may be trying harder than you think.

Can a tor client ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the one similar can put an end to this ?