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The Problem With Using End-to-End Web Crypto as a Cure-All
fsterman writes: Since the Snowden revelations, end-to-end web encryption has become trendy. There are browser add-ons that bolt a PGP client onto webmail and both Yahoo and Google are planning to support PGP directly. They attempt to prevent UI spoofing with icons similar to the site-authentication banks use to combat phishing.
The problem is that a decade of research shows that users habituate to these icons and come to ignore them. An attacker can pull off UI spoofing with a 90%+ success rate.
The problem is that a decade of research shows that users habituate to these icons and come to ignore them. An attacker can pull off UI spoofing with a 90%+ success rate.
The funny thing is that the technical security of snail mail (a paper envelope) is amazingly poor, but it is generally quite secure due to law and custom. However, law and custom is absolutely no security or privacy on the Internet. There is the problem.
The problem with security researchers is that they declare any usable technology as "completely insecure." and in a sense they are correct. Good security is hard and inconvenient. What we have right now is even worse. There is no privacy what so ever.
What e-mail needs for most people is an envelope. Enough encryption that the casual observer cannot read the message, and the malicious observer must make a targeted attack. I don't need to stop theNSA I just want to dissuade the PHB form reading over my virtual sholder. In the process the NSA will have to pic and choose who it targets. Yes, these e-mails will remain completely insecure, but there is a much higher cost to read the data, and there is a much higher risk of being discovered doing so.
Lets not let the perfect become the enemy of the good when it comes to security.
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
Using https everywhere does have some downsides, things like Javascript that contains executable code is either cachable or secure from MITM tampering. Why don't we have a way to sign content without encrypting it?
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Fix your users... Heh heh...
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Maybe the meta-problem is that all our different applications/services have different data repositories and thus need separate security solutions. What if we flipped it so that each of us had a private, individually encrypted cloud repository, with identity and communication APIs layered on top? Then simple apps could be written to conform to the new "cloudspace" certificate-based authentication and security model.
In this way you would no longer need separate services for email, IM, social, file sharing, etc. We'd communicate directly and privately in every mode (with public still an option if appropriate), and cut out the middleman. Starting from that approach you'd basically rewire the Internet while leaving everything else the same. You'd obviate the need for Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Dropbox, Snapchat, Instagram, Youtube, etc., etc., etc.... Basically, any service that collects user data and orchestrates sharing between people would be an evolutionary dead end. That would be cool right?
Plus, the only way it could work is to base everything on open source software and devops, so nobody could ever seize control or extract a tariff. It would be what Bruce Schneier refers to when he laments the lack of "public commons" on today's commercially-controlled Internet. Going a step further, once everyone has his/her own private personal cloudspace, we'd each have a place to put all the data from our Fitbits and Nests and Internet of Things, and the other exploding sources of personal data. Wouldn't this be a better way altogether?
My other
I probably wouldn't be interested in a CA that gave me my cert, I'd rather have one that signed one I generated :)
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.