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Mozilla Begins To Move Towards HTTPS-Only Web

jones_supa writes: Mozilla is officially beginning to phase out non-secure HTTP to prefer HTTPS instead. After a robust discussion on the mailing list, the company will boldly start removing capabilities of the non-secure web. There are two broad elements of this plan: setting a date after which all new features will be available only to secure websites, and gradually phasing out access to browser features for non-secure websites, especially regarding features that pose risks to users' security and privacy. This plan still allows for usage of the "http" URI scheme for legacy content. With HSTS and the upgrade-insecure-requests CSP attribute, the "http" scheme can be automatically translated to "https" by the browser, and thus run securely. The goal of this effort is also to send a message to the web developer community that they need to be secure. Mozilla expects to make some proposals to the W3C WebAppSec Working Group soon.

193 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. Excellent. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    More wildcard certs for me to buy.

    1. Re:Excellent. by kthreadd · · Score: 4, Informative

      More wildcard certs for me to buy.

      If Let's Encrypt takes off, and it's fairly likely to do so given the sponsors they have (including Mozilla), you won't have to buy any certs at all. They will just be there automatically.

    2. Re:Excellent. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What if Let's Encrypt doesn't take off?

      What if it eventually fails?

      We (the entire web community!) are absolutely fucked then.

      Have you even read about Let's Encrypt, and how it's used? The last I saw, you have to run some software on the web server serving the site that uses the cert. This software will supposedly even reconfigure the web server to use the cert! How the fuck is that going to work with anything but the simplest setups? How the fuck is that going to work with legacy shared hosting providers that don't use this software? It all makes me very uncomfortable!

    3. Re: Excellent. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      CAs don't have your primary key unless you fuck up and send it to them or something :P

      They could issue a bogus certificate in your name whether you work with them or not. Your CA being in the US isn't a risk.

    4. Re: Excellent. by kthreadd · · Score: 2

      They plan to offer a tool that does exactly that but absolutely don't have to use it. The plan is to have an API and nothing stops you from using that instead of the automation.

    5. Re: Excellent. by RLaager · · Score: 4, Informative

      A CA never has your private key. You generate it locally and it is never sent to them.

    6. Re:Excellent. by AndyCanfield · · Score: 1

      I have my own personal web site. It uses HTTP. Several years ago I looked into upgrading it to HTTPS. No thanks. Why not? Because [a] I had to shell out my own money to by a certificate to vouch for my domain name, and [b] It seemed wrong to me to have somebody else to voucth for me. Maybe Mozilla can solve the first problem. But if you go to my domain name, why do you need anybody else to swear that that really is me? Seems wrong, somehow.

      - Andy Canfield
      www.andycanfield.com

      Ahah! Do you believe what I posted? Did I sign it with my PGP key? Do you believe that this is me typing this? Who will you believe if you don't believe me? Answer: don't trust anybody, including me.

    7. Re:Excellent. by kthreadd · · Score: 2

      Not the same thing, wildcard helps in cases where multiple subdomains are being served by one server with only a single ip address. Since Let's Encrypt is currenly discussing wildcards, and its not looking good for them to actually support them, this would require servers to have an ip address per domain. If a server has more than 2 domains it is server, its COMPLETELY unreasonable.

      It's not necessary to have an IP address per cert anymore since every browser has support for SNI nowadays.

    8. Re:Excellent. by kthreadd · · Score: 1

      How many hosting providers can you name that will install arbitrary certificates and run HTTPS for you without additional charges? GoDaddy? (No) FatCow? (No) SiteGround? (No) HostGator? (No) BlueHost? (No) DreamHost? (No)

      They will generally offer self-signed HTTPS for a backend interface (e.g. one without your domain name in it). All of them want you to pay a fee for the service of offering HTTPS on your own virtual domain (regardless of who signs your certificate).

      I'm sure they will change their business model.

    9. Re: Excellent. by kthreadd · · Score: 1

      A VPN will help in many cases, but it doesn't take away the need for true end-to-end encryption.

    10. Re:Excellent. by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      If it fails, then people will not use Mozilla browse.
      Firefox has been copying chrome so much anyways, we can just switch to that without much of a hassle.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    11. Re:Excellent. by dcollins117 · · Score: 1

      Because [a] I had to shell out my own money to by a certificate to vouch for my domain name, and [b] It seemed wrong to me to have somebody else to voucth for me.

      It seems fundamentally wrong to me too. That's why I created my own CA certificate. I'm reasonably sure I am who I claim to be. Some company half way across the country can not make that assertion with the same degree of confidence as I can. It's easy, and free, to create your own certificates.

      The downside is that my visitors must agree to accept the certificate. It's not a big concern in my case, but it may be for some people.

    12. Re: Excellent. by amxcoder · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually this. I'm in the same boat, with my own domain on shared hosting. I'm not going to shell out money to a third party for a cert that really isn't needed for a website that just gives info about me and my business.

      On another note, I program embedded control systems for a living, and often am incorporating automation to reach out and either pull out scrape data from web servers for different reasons (to diplay weather or energyvusage stats) or control home security monitors etc. These embedded platforms dont have the encryption frameworks for them to access most https sites. Meaning to do the simple thing like scraping info from a https page requires delving into encryption protocols, rolling your own encryption implementations and having it run on a platform that is less powerful than a typical phone. It all started when all email servers went to https and then trying to get an automation system to send a status or alert email turned into a major PITA. Now the whole web is going to be like that. I love how in the dawn of IoT, that everyone assumes that all these microprocessors are going to be running standard full fleged web frameworks and all the goodies that goes with them, including encryption, XML, JSON, Restful and other frameworks that are common on on your big 5 OSes, but not so common in the land of proprietary OSes running on embedded platforms.

      BTW, I program AMX and Crestron automation systems if anyone was wondering what platforms Im specifically referring to, but there are others as well.

    13. Re:Excellent. by 72beetle · · Score: 1

      Chrome's on the same path, they announced it a couple months ago.

      --
      -Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
    14. Re:Excellent. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And they will still do that with https. Half of hotels I stayed in France were spoofing ssl certificates of all https sites except a number of whitelisted ones (banks etc). Preferably Firefox would simply warn you that the certificate has been altered and the connection is not to be trusted. That would have still been an improvement over http.

      Unfortunately, Firefox treats this as an error and refuses to display anything until you permanently add the hotel/airline/employer's certificate to the list of your trusted CAs.

    15. Re:Excellent. by amorsen · · Score: 1

      Another problem is that if they do accept your CA certificate, you can issue a certificate for irs.gov and they will believe that.

      The trust system in TLS is really lousy.

      --
      Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
    16. Re: Excellent. by AndyCanfield · · Score: 1

      To send e-mail to ThisIdiot@andycanfield.com you have to send it to ThatIdiot@yandex.com. There is no e-mail service at andycanfield.com because all of the worlds SMTP servers are interconnected by mandatory certification.

      There there is no e-mail server on my web site. Your e-mail client connects to SMTP.alpha.com and it talks to SMTP.beta.com which talks to SMTP.gamma.com on down the line until the message gets to SMTP.target.com and delivers the message where he can pick up the message from POP3.target.com. All the world's SMTP servers are inconnected by a web of paid-for certificates. Unlike HTTPS, there is no human involved, so nobody can say "Yes, go ahead and accept that certificate". Your certificate is either signed by a recognized organisation, or you're out of the chain.

  2. Wait a minute... by jez9999 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If my website just serves up public data that I don't care about the government seeing, you're going to disable new features on it anyway? Seems a bit extreme.

    1. Re:Wait a minute... by LordLimecat · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not sure if you've been watching the news, but China has been using Baidu effectively as a botnet because they are able to intercept and modify javascript sent via HTTP.

      Stops a lot of threats, even if you're just a hobbyist; it ensures that an attacker cant just intercept your hobby page and drop a bunch of exploit kits on it.

    2. Re:Wait a minute... by jez9999 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      What about development though? You want to go through the PITA of setting up HTTPS for every development site? This also stops you using Wireshark for seeing what data is actually being transmitted.

    3. Re:Wait a minute... by kthreadd · · Score: 2

      If my website just serves up public data that I don't care about the government seeing, you're going to disable new features on it anyway? Seems a bit extreme.

      TLS can actually be used without encryption, the data is transfered in clear but you still get the authentication; which is actually something you want even if the data itself isn't secret.

    4. Re:Wait a minute... by markhb · · Score: 2

      Do you have an English reference for the Baidu comment (I'm not doubting, just want to see the details)?

      --
      Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
    5. Re:Wait a minute... by mothlos · · Score: 2

      Secure protects against a whole class of man-in-the-middle attacks which allow third parties to inject malicious code into non-sensitive communications.

      More importantly, however, requiring security of everyone makes secure sites more secure. The big problem is that security notifications for users don't work. It is simply too difficult and error-prone to notify users of important security problems while also ignoring unimportant ones. False negatives put users at risk and false positives train users to ignore warnings. This problem would largely disappear if security were the overwhelming expectation and the folks who can address this are the people running the servers.

    6. Re:Wait a minute... by myowntrueself · · Score: 1

      If my website just serves up public data that I don't care about the government seeing, you're going to disable new features on it anyway? Seems a bit extreme.

      I get the feeling Mozilla don't want anyone to use their browser...

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    7. Re:Wait a minute... by bigfinger76 · · Score: 2

      This also stops you using Wireshark for seeing what data is actually being transmitted.

      Is that not the point of HTTPS?

    8. Re:Wait a minute... by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 1

      What about development though? You want to go through the PITA of setting up HTTPS for every development site?

      If i understanding it right (and if you want to use -or need, as it's the reality of things- mozila to develop/test): in the beggining, only if you want to use newer features, gradually you will be forced for every feature.

      --
      Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
    9. Re:Wait a minute... by Ken+D · · Score: 2

      From what I read on the "Technology" link for Let's Encrypt their proposal will not work for all the very many HTTP servers that are not publicly accessible. In order to prove you own the web site they have to be able to access it. That's just not going to happen.

    10. Re:Wait a minute... by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      Not sure if you've been watching the news, but China has been using Baidu effectively as a botnet because they are able to intercept and modify javascript sent via HTTP.

      Now that you mention it I vaguely remember hearing something about CNNIC and that CAs have effectively become key escrow for governments around the world.

    11. Re:Wait a minute... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Considering how much effort Mozilla put in to providing tools for developers I'd be amazed if they hadn't considered development and wire sniffing for debugging. Also, one of the other major goals of efforts to make HTTPS the default is to provide a simple way to enable it.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    12. Re:Wait a minute... by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The problem is that requiring HTTPS doesn't make sites more secure. It prevents an attacker who can't obtain a legitimate SSL certificate for the domain from running a mid-transit MITM attack, nothing more. The biggest problems seem to be a) phishing attacks that convince the user to visit a rogue site eliminating the need for MITM, b) local system compromises (client- or server-side) that have access to the cleartext traffic and don't need an MITM, and c) rogue CAs who issue certificates for domains the recipient isn't authorized for which allows for mid-transit MITM with HTTPS. The first two can't be mitigated by anything other than smarter users (HAH!), and mitigating the third requires massive changes to certificates so it's possible to determine whether a certificate belongs to a given site without depending on anything in the certificate and without depending on the CA having validated the recipient.

    13. Re:Wait a minute... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Not sure if you've been watching the news, but China has been using root certs to intercept any and all traffic and intercepting HTTPS in realtime isn't that big of a deal. It's not 1998 anymore, the computing horsepower needed is readily available.

    14. Re:Wait a minute... by kthreadd · · Score: 1

      You can run your own CA and install the CA certificate in you browser. For a private development site it's perfectly fine if it's only trusted by your browser.

    15. Re:Wait a minute... by swillden · · Score: 2
      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    16. Re:Wait a minute... by Lennie · · Score: 1

      The features they are talking about are things like:

      enable the webcam

      Do you really want a man-in-the-middle attack inserting some extra Javascript when you enable the webcam on some site ?

      I would think the answer is: no

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    17. Re:Wait a minute... by Lennie · · Score: 1

      I believe an exception for localhost is included.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    18. Re:Wait a minute... by Lennie · · Score: 1

      What you're website is serving has no relationship to what the browser gets if they do a man-in-the-middle attack and change the content.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    19. Re:Wait a minute... by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      I'd think by your UID you'd have been around long enough to recognize this pattern.

      This is just how Netscape manages itself into ... well not being in business. Just because they changed their name to Mozilla after Sun realized how shitty they were doesn't mean its a different company really.

      Netscape has never had a grasp on what their customers wanted or needed. They have always coded themselves right out of existence by doing stupid shit JUST like this. No one at Netscape that makes decisions should be allowed to make decisions, they repeatedly show no clue who their target market is or what that market wants and then tell that market both things regardless of the fact that people WHY more qualified than them are part of their target.

      You know why we have Google Chrome? Because Netscape (the company) is fucking stupid and Google knows it. They like to make decisions based on principals ... and they're stupid principles that no one gives a fuck about outside of their tiny little over funded for no reason world.

      I call them netscape because its the same people making the same stupid decisions that put them out of business the first time around, and some of those people went on to Sun ... and helped put them out of business as well. They make decisions for their own personal purposes. They don't deserve to have a business, but a bunch of techies fanboy'd up on firefox because 'its not Internet Explorer' ... not because its a good browser, its about the shittiest browser used on the web today in every way. That legacy still keeps random fanboys ranting and raving about how theres nothing wrong with firefox and random UI and code changes weekly are the way everything should be done.

      God, I can not explain in enough detail how horrible Netscape/Mozilla is at software development. Without their anti-Microsoft fanboys, they wouldn't exist, and even thats going away.

      When Adobe's PDF reader is less of a resource hog than your browser, you probably fucked up ... A LOT.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    20. Re:Wait a minute... by Lennie · · Score: 1

      It might seem as if there is nothing changing under the hood, but people are actually working on improving things and actually making sure CA's can't issue certificates for your website you didn't want to be issued:

      http://www.certificate-transpa...

      https://developer.mozilla.org/... (available in the release version of Firefox and Chrome)

      https://blog.mozilla.org/secur... (available in the release version of Firefox, Chrome already had something similar)

      https://blog.mozilla.org/secur...

      https://www.grc.com/revocation...

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    21. Re:Wait a minute... by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      I don't think it's extreme at all. I think we're past the point that's it's socially reasonable or responsible not to encrypt all traffic by default.

      Even if you're 100% OK with visitors to your site being snooped on, consider that adding to the amount of crypto in use worldwide makes it hard for repressive governments to tell what their citizens are doing online. Maybe your site would be the straw that broke the Great Firewall's back and lets some kid read uncensored news.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    22. Re:Wait a minute... by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      This is really a separate issue though.
       
      I am sure that most governments have at least once CA in their pocket these days.
       
      And, really, no matter what system is in place, governments will always have wire-level access and all kinds of backdoor agreements with manufacturers.
       
      This move is not intended to curb government surveillance though (although it does add at least one more barrier to the process).
       
      The first step toward a more secure system is to get rid of the insecure parts.
       
      Anyway, I am pretty sure the HTTP 2.0 standard is going to be secure by default so this is just getting ahead of the ball.

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    23. Re:Wait a minute... by byuu · · Score: 1

      Then disable HTTP-only on *.cn instead. Leave other countries that don't pull this shit alone. Hell, that might actually be a nice punitive action against China for that; given our governments don't have the balls to do anything about it for obvious trade/debt reasons.

    24. Re:Wait a minute... by Lennie · · Score: 1

      Even if that foreign government uses your website to attack US companies ?

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    25. Re:Wait a minute... by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Supporting unencrypted is in itself a threat. It may not matter in all cases, but it matter enough that it's an overall win.

    26. Re: Wait a minute... by kthreadd · · Score: 1

      It's going to take about five minutes before someone has made a blog post with the openssl commands you need to run. It will be no big deal.

    27. Re:Wait a minute... by Geeky · · Score: 1

      That implies that all sites need Javascript. Whatever happened to plain old HTML, perhaps with a side of CSS? If i want to serve largely static content for anyone to read, with no bells and whistles, why do I need https?

      --
      Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
    28. Re:Wait a minute... by Sloppy · · Score: 1

      By having the user's view of your site not be "static content with no java or flash."

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    29. Re:Wait a minute... by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 1

      That's an argument for having the browser try HTTPS first, optionally falling back to HTTP if HTTPS isn't available. That's fine by me. It's not an argument for disabling capabilities of HTML/Javascript/etc. just because the transport isn't encrypted. It's also not an argument based on security but on privacy, and there's plenty of privacy problems that exist regardless of whether the connection's encrypted or not (eg. web bugs placed in advertising coming from servers in the site's domain (but not operated by the site and not on the site's network) that then use plain query-string parameters to relay data to off-site servers bypassing browser origin checks).

    30. Re:Wait a minute... by rHBa · · Score: 1

      Live HTTP Headers captures http packets before they are encrypted/sent and after they are decrypted/received.

    31. Re:Wait a minute... by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 1

      No they have not.

    32. Re:Wait a minute... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      This also stops you using Wireshark for seeing what data is actually being transmitted.

      No, it doesnt, if you do the work of specifying the private keys you want wireshark to use to decode the traffic.

    33. Re:Wait a minute... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      You heard wrong. CAs dont posess the private keys for the certificates they issue; they simply sign the cert. Private keys generally dont leave the server that issued the CSR.

    34. Re:Wait a minute... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Im not sure if you're familiar with certificate pinning, but in any case I can assure you they have not been doing this on a wide scale, and it is nowhere near as easy as you think.

      To properly intercept HTTPS, you need to know the URL-- not just the IP-- being visited. DNS can be cached, which means sometimes the MITM ISP cant know what the URL is they need to forge a certificate for.

      It could be done, but would generate a ton of red flags and everyone would hear about it.

    35. Re:Wait a minute... by markhb · · Score: 1

      Thanks!

      --
      Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
  3. F**** you, Mozilla! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    First, you introduce "features" like https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=435013 and then you want to block the rest of pages the mighty Mozilla Security Council does not approve?? Get stuffed.

    1. Re:F**** you, Mozilla! by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      It's almost like they even consider 11% too much... It's like they forgot why they forked to Firefox in the first place.

      I'll miss "Password Maker" but I think it's really time for me to ditch it completely.

      Does Chrome have anything like Firebug?

    2. Re:F**** you, Mozilla! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Does Chrome have anything like Firebug?

      Oh my yes!! I quit using Firefox for Javascript development because the Chrome developer tools are so much better than Firebug. I didn't think that anyone could improve on Firebug, but I was quite pleasantly surprised.

  4. Thank you. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
  5. So.... by Continental+Drift · · Score: 4, Funny
  6. What about servers run from home ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So where does that leave home users who use self encrypted certificates ? These are currently untrusted and I'm not paying a big chunk of money for the little server I run my friends and I use to collaborate.

    1. Re:What about servers run from home ? by jmv · · Score: 4, Informative

      I suspect that Let's encrypt is related to that issue.

    2. Re:What about servers run from home ? by _xeno_ · · Score: 2

      Hell, where does that leave web developers who just want to test their website on a locally running copy?

      Am I going to be forced to set up an HTTPS server just to test new features? Can you at the very least turn this off so you can test things locally without having to self-sign a certificate and then explicitly trust that certificate?

      This is a ludicrously stupid idea from Mozilla.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    3. Re:What about servers run from home ? by squiggleslash · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      You import your home CA into your browsers, which you should be doing anyway.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    4. Re:What about servers run from home ? by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      As has been mentioned before in this thread, use the Let's Encrypt protocol to get a publicly valid cert for free, set up your own internal CA or just use self signed certs... not hard.

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    5. Re:What about servers run from home ? by jafiwam · · Score: 2

      As has been mentioned before in this thread, use the Let's Encrypt protocol to get a publicly valid cert for free, set up your own internal CA or just use self signed certs... not hard.

      I am beginning to suspect this whole article's purpose for existing is to allow commenters to side-load a bunch of whitewashing about "letsencrypt"

      I am going to respond with a resounding FUCK YOU when you offer to let some third party shit "reconfigure and do it automatically" the security on my web services.

    6. Re:What about servers run from home ? by master_kaos · · Score: 1

      why dont you jusst create a self signed wildcard cert and install it in your browser?Thats what we do for our local development we have a wildcard cert with multiple SAN and it works great. Then just install it in our keychain

    7. Re:What about servers run from home ? by JohnFen · · Score: 1

      Let's encrypt isn't hard, assuming that you have enough control over the server that you can install Linux packages and that your server runs Linux. If either of these aren't true, Let's Encrypt is worthless.

    8. Re:What about servers run from home ? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      We'll see how they go. So far all the free CAs share one thing in common which is a lack of features (e.g. no wildcard certs), and the fact that having the CA is no more or less secure than creating a self-signed system. None of the free website do the same level of background checks that apply to paid for certs.

  7. Also, stop supporting sites with poor encryption by QuietLagoon · · Score: 3, Interesting
    My bank still insists on using RC4 ciphers and TLS 1.

    If Firefox were to stop supporting the bank's insecure website, it would surely get their attention better than I've been able to.

  8. Version upperbound for Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This HTTP website is best viewed with...
    IE >= 11
    Chrome >= 42
    Firefox <= 37

  9. Not encryption, authorization by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    A lot of content out there is benign, or crackable - what you want to make sure of is that you're connecting to the site you intended, and that the content you're getting is what's intended. What the content actually IS (cat memes) can be less important.

    1. Re:Not encryption, authorization by khchung · · Score: 1

      A lot of content out there is benign, or crackable - what you want to make sure of is that you're connecting to the site you intended, and that the content you're getting is what's intended. What the content actually IS (cat memes) can be less important.

      A lot of mails out there is benign also, doesn't mean we shouldn't use envelopes whenever we can.

      If only sensitive stuff is encrypted, it helps NSA to locate where are the sensitive stuff.

      --
      Oliver.
    2. Re: Not encryption, authorization by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      This please. I work at a company that sends petabytes of encrypted video a day. Don't make us encrypt it twice, that's just a waste of everyone's time and money.

  10. this. exactly this. by nimbius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Two years after snowdens revelations we're seeing a reality come to pass. After the NSA swept its most damning indictments under the rug, after congress gave a sigh and a shrug and stifled a syrupy belch from the afternoons filet mignon lunch, we still see this change. After the TV spotlights were turned back to fashion trends, civil unrest, diet pills and other nonesuch this persisted despite the best effort. and its extremely unfortunate

    Instead of watching discourse spread and meaningful legislation come to pass we're watching a largely uninformed electorate occasionally mistake snowden for assange on national television, and the elected officials with whom our protection they are charged bungle through bills that dont really do much of anything. We're seeing the alternative that no nation wants, and that alternative is a two-tier us-versus-them system in which groups of dedicated hackers fight back. It sets the stage for good-versus-bad and the determinant for this assertion to eventually become the existence of crypto or passwords and ones general willingness to divulge them in the face of overwhelming yet unconstitutional authoritarian presence.

    expect 3 letter government organizations to get frustrated, and angry, very quickly. Aaron Schwartz was a prime example of how, in the future, citizens who act to protect themselves with crypto and security will face the bureaucratic version of biblical retribution in the form of endless charges, indefinite espionage, and a litany of convictable offenses that would result in a lifetime of imprisonment for anyone who dares not to divulge their password.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  11. Still no opportunistic encryption by klapaucjusz · · Score: 2

    There's still no opportunistic encryption in HTTPS. Does that mean I'm going to have to buy a TLS certificate for my printer every year?

    1. Re:Still no opportunistic encryption by Fruit · · Score: 1

      No you just get one for free.

    2. Re:Still no opportunistic encryption by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      You get what you payfor. People point out startssl every time this subject is mentioned, yet fail to realise that their free service is very restricted in what it provides.

    3. Re:Still no opportunistic encryption by Fruit · · Score: 1

      The domain name has to be global, the IP address does not. And no, you do not get your own CA, just a certificate for printer.yourdomain.org.

    4. Re:Still no opportunistic encryption by Fruit · · Score: 1

      Yes I use it. I have about 10 certificates with them. To use multiple subdomains I use SNI (for IPv4) and IPv6.

    5. Re:Still no opportunistic encryption by Fruit · · Score: 1

      True. There's also WoSign (which uses the same root CA but is less restricted), but their OCSP-server is in China which will make the first connection a bit slow.

  12. Re:Sooo... by myowntrueself · · Score: 1

    So Mozilla you do not want me to use your browser? You are going to cripple your browser for your perceived 'better' agenda.

    I was thinking that.

    The goal of this effort is also to send a message to the web developer community that they need to be secure.

    No, Mozilla.

    The message this sends to the web developer community is "Don't bother with Mozilla because no one will keep using it so just develop for browsers that actually get used."

    --
    In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
  13. A gem from the discussion by kav2k · · Score: 2

    I fully support this proposal. In addition to APIs, I'd like to propose prohibiting caching any resources loaded over insecure HTTP, regardless of Cache-Control header, in Phase 2.N. The reasons are:
    1) MITM can pollute users' HTTP cache, by modifying some JavaScript files with a long time cache control max-age.
    2) It won't break any websites, just some performance penalty for them.
    3) Many website operators and users avoid using HTTPS, since they believe HTTPS is much slower than plaintext HTTP. After deprecating HTTP cache, this argument will be more wrong.

    I'm sure the users will appreciate the extra traffic!

    I can see 1 being a thing, but 2 is a penalty for the end-user on metered connections, and 3 is an argument for "Mozilla is much slower than [insert browser here]".

    1. Re:A gem from the discussion by Wycliffe · · Score: 2

      I think it's even worse than that. Are there ANY caching services, edgecast, or CDNs that support encryption?
      https is great when you need it but for static content like images it makes caching next to impossible as well
      as requires several times more servers to serve the same amount of traffic as an http server can serve over
      double the number of pages per second as a https server and that's without looking at all the traffic that is
      skipped with caching and CDNs.

    2. Re:A gem from the discussion by ThePhilips · · Score: 2

      I'm sure the users will appreciate the extra traffic!

      Only users??

      Most serious hosters still charge by traffic. The web-site owners too would appreciate the increased traffic and higher bill.

      --
      All hope abandon ye who enter here.
    3. Re:A gem from the discussion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Which ones don't?

    4. Re:A gem from the discussion by dbrueck · · Score: 3, Informative

      I do worry about the downsides of this in terms of how it'll cause higher load on servers because of higher traffic. That said, all major CDNs support HTTPS on the edges and non-HTTPS between the origin and the CDN, so they'll be fine. Where this will probably hurt more is with forward proxies at universities and businesses and transparent intermediate caches at ISPs.

    5. Re:A gem from the discussion by Strider- · · Score: 3, Informative

      Also, for those of us operating network connections to remote locations, everything https is absolutely destructive to the network performance. Right now, our WAAS setup gives us about a 30% boost on the satellite connection, mostly through low level de-duplication and compression. When you have 50+ people depending on a 1.8Mbps satellite connection, every bit counts. Enabling https for things that don't need it is a huge performance penalty.

      Basically, the people making these decisions assume that everyone has an unlimited, fast internet pipe. This is simply not the case.

      --
      ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
    6. Re:A gem from the discussion by dbrueck · · Score: 1

      Good point. Yet another example is in-flight wifi like Gogo - not only do those guys rely heavily on caching, they'll even do things like recompress jpegs on the fly to be smaller. I'll sidestep the debate around whether that is good or bad, but another consequence of HTTPS-only web is that stuff like that has the potential to get even slower.

  14. SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mozilla used to be the Savior of the Web. But after these last few years, I fear they've lost that role.

    The UI changes to Firefox were totally unwanted, and have pretty much killed it as a product. Its share of the market keeps dropping and dropping. When we look at global web browser usage stats like these, we see that Firefox is now maybe 10% of the market, if even that. Chrome for Android alone, Chrome 41 alone and Chrome 40 alone each have about the same or more users than all versions of Firefox. Heck, even IE 11 alone and Safari have about the same number of users these days.

    Mozilla has also engaged in numerous other half-arsed efforts, like Firefox OS and Persona, that nobody wants. Every review I've seen of Firefox OS has been negative. Nobody likes it, and nobody wants it, even the third-worlders they've had to resort to targeting it to. With Android, iOS, and so many other alternatives that are so much better, why the heck would anyone sensible use Firefox OS? The only reason to use it is to try to conform with some weird fringe ideology that worships HTML5/JS/CSS above all else, even above usable, working applications.

    Then there was the whole Eich debacle. Regardless of your stance, it's pretty disgusting that somebody had to lose his job merely because of his beliefs regarding same-sex marriages. It would be considered unacceptable if a homosexual was forced out of a job for supporting same-sex marriage, and it should be considered just as unacceptable if a heterosexual was forced out of a job for not supporting same-sex marriage. This is no place for hypocrisy or double standards.

    Now there's this shit that will cause headaches and problems for so many Web users.

    We need a new organization to save us, and the Web, from Mozilla. We need an organization that will put out a usable browser. We need an organization that focuses on doing what's right, and what the Web community wants, rather than what it wants. We need an organization that will listen and respect its users, rather than trampling on them and ignoring their pleas. We need a new Savior, and we need it now.

    1. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why are Mozilla's supporters so hypocritical so often?

      Why do you guys go on and on about "freedom" and "liberty" and "choice" and how important such things are, but then never actually live up to those ideals yourselves?

      Existing Firefox users lost their freedom to use modern versions of Firefox with a usable UI.

      Eich lost his freedom of expression.

      Even this HTTPS cert ordeal is about Mozilla taking away our freedom to use unencrypted HTTP communication when and where we want.

      Please tone down the hypocrisy, if you want us to take you seriously.

    2. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Goaway · · Score: 1

      Existing Firefox users lost their freedom to use modern versions of Firefox with a usable UI.

      This is not a freedom which exists, especially since it makes no sense at all.

      Eich lost his freedom of expression.

      He did not.

    3. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by g0bshiTe · · Score: 1

      I wonder why people trust Chrome after the Google Desktop fiasco.

      What's the bullshit about UI?

      If you don't like it download the source and change it.

      https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_guide/Source_Code/Downloading_Source_Archives

      Let's see Chrome, IE, Safari manage that.

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    4. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by gfxguy · · Score: 2

      I agree... he did not lose his freedom of speech at all; freedom of speech != freedom from any and all ramifications. However, I think the point Anonymous Coward was making is that if it were reversed, and someone lost their job for supporting same sex marriage, you'd never hear the end of it.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    5. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Then there was the whole Eich debacle. Regardless of your stance, it's pretty disgusting that somebody had to lose his job merely because of his beliefs regarding same-sex marriages.

      Bullshit.

      When you're the CEO of a company, your personal beliefs are no longer your own; anything you do in public reflects on that company. You are in effect the company's face and public image. So if the company's board of directors doesn't like the image you're conveying of the company, they are entirely within their rights to fire you and hire someone else.

      Simpletons like you don't seem to understand that being a CEO is not a normal job where you come to work, punch a time clock, do what you're told, and collect a paycheck and go home to live your private life. When you're CEO, you have no private life. Just look at Steve Jobs when he was alive: he was well-known, famous, he was Apple. Everything he did represented that company. Not only does the CEO direct the company and make all the big decisions, he also serves as the public face of the company.

      Granted, Mozilla isn't as big or prominent a company as Apple Computer, but it's still fairly well-known, as countless people do use their browser (or have in the past). If they thought that Eich was making their company look bad, they had a very good reason to replace him.

      Are you going to try to argue that if Coca-Cola hires some celebrity to do some ads for them, and that celebrity gets caught on camera spouting a bunch of racist stuff like Mel Gibson, that they shouldn't fire him, and that they should continue showing ads showing this now-controversial personality and thus completely ruin their public image?

    6. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      You're a moron. Eich didn't lose his freedom of expression; he can express himself as much as he wants, but Mozilla corporation is not required to allow him to use their name as a podium for his speech.

      As for a "usable UI", the UI hasn't changed significantly, you idiot. Press "Alt" and the menu is right there. BFD.

      The criticism of this new HTTPS fiasco is warranted IMO, but you look like a blithering moron by spouting all that other crap.

    7. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Lennie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When he did what he did he wasn't the CEO, it was years before that and the law said he had to mention his employers name when he donates.

      If it wasn't the law I pretty sure he wouldn't have even mentioned Mozilla it would just be him donating money.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    8. Re: SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Goaway · · Score: 1

      So what you're saying is, nobody has ever had freedom of speech?

      Thanks for clearing that up.

    9. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Goaway · · Score: 2

      However, I think the point Anonymous Coward was making is that if it were reversed, and someone lost their job for supporting same sex marriage, you'd never hear the end of it.

      First thing to remember is that this is not someone who lost their job, it's a boss being rejected by his employees. That is a very special and unusual kind of situation, where normal power relationships are inverted. You can't really say the person in question is being oppressed here.

      So if a company rejected their boss for agreeing with same-sex marriage, if the rest of the company was by and whole against it, I wouldn't be happy about it, but I would not claim they had done anything morally wrong (beyond to whatever extent I think holding such an opinion is morally wrong).

    10. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      Also the whole h.264 non-support debacle. Of course, to be fair, Google waffled on that too... but was on the flip-side, and never actually followed through and removed it from their mainstream browser.

      At some point Mozilla decided its philosophical (and sometimes political) agenda was going to be the driving force behind its decisions, rather than the users' wants/needs. That's fine; they're certainly free to do that - but if their users don't see value in them doing so, they're going to fade into obscurity... and, from what I can determine, most users don't care about the things Mozilla cares about.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    11. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by gfxguy · · Score: 1

      I'm only saying that the complaint is about hypocrisy; the public outcry against someone "defending traditional marriage" dwarfs the public outcry against someone supporting same sex marriage (despite popular support in the U.S. being roughly equal), when the fact of the matter is people should just shrug and move on. For the record, I'm not arguing on this guy's behalf because I'm against same sex marriage - I'm not, I really don't care (and as such you could put me in the "supports" category), I just agree with the opinion that the public outcry is hypocritical.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    12. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 1

      Freedom of expression is not freedom from criticism.

    13. Re: SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      So you are against free markets? Thanks for clearing that up...FTFY

      Since you seem to have trouble grasping the two completely separate concepts allow old Hairy to elucidate....freedom of speech, a right protecting you from the government keeping you from speaking. Free markets, people are allowed to vote with their wallets and support or not companies....see the difference?

      Eich and Windows 8 are NOT examples of the former but the latter, in BOTH cases people said "I do not like this therefor I will not use your product and will encourage others to not use it too" and the companies saw their users drop like a rock and CHOSE as companies in a free market to change their direction to increase sales, MSFT by coming up with Windows 10, Mozilla by firing Eich. And yes Virginia the Mozilla move had everything to do with sales, Mozilla gets their money from search, no users using their browser? No revenue.

      So I find it hilarious that the right wing is all for the free markets when its crony capitalism, offshoring, or anything else that restricts or distorts the free market in their favor, but when its one of the most fundamental bedrocks of a free market, the RIGHT to vote with your wallet and CHOOSE which products you will support? Well we can't have that, now can we?

      THE FREE MARKET HAS SPOKEN, if the majority believed as you did? Their share would have gone UP, they would have seen this indicated in their usage numbers, and they would have kept Eich. Instead their numbers went DOWN, revenue was put at risk, and they chose to get rid of a CEO that frankly wasn't even bothering to do his job (two important roles for a CEO is press relations and damage control, and he refused to do either one) and wadda ya know their numbers stabilized.

      Voting with your wallet is one of the most important tenets of a free market, its how the consumers can influence direction even in large corporations, again see Windows 8 (which it looks like will never even reach much higher than Vista) and compare it to Windows 10, which is exactly what the users asked for. So when I see guys like you trying to say its "free speech" when the market doesn't go your way I have to ask....why do you hate capitalism and the free market?

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    14. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Xtifr · · Score: 1

      You mean the way we never hear the end of it now? I mean, here we are discussing it how many years later? :)

      Seriously, I'm surprised the bigots didn't get together and fund him enough money to retire on, the way they did that pizza owner who said he'd refuse to cater a gay wedding recently.

      And then there's the whole blaming Mozilla for the situation, when they were facing a massive boycott. The browser may be free, but the foundation depends on money from third parties (like Google), who only pay if the brower actually gets into people's hands. He thus became a liability to the foundation, quite literally, and even he clearly knew it.

      1. The point of the foundation is to promote the use of Firefox.
      2. Eich's appointment had the opposite effect; it was causing people to switch away from Firefox.

      You can say all those people who were organizing the boycott are evil if you want (that's another debate), but I don't see how anyone with two brain cells to rub together can blame the foundation for taking what was the only reasonable way out of the no-win corner they'd painted themselves into. They either kept him, and faced widespread outrage and an ongoing boycott, or they let him go and faced widespread outrage. So, they picked outrage, because that was already unavoidable.

    15. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      None of which matters to the persecutor.

    16. Re: SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Lazere · · Score: 1

      Real world example time.

      If Tim Cook were to say he disapproves of gay marriage, would the Apple board of directors fire him? I honestly don't know. What I do know is, if he was fired, it wouldn't be because the board members personal beliefs. In fact, I'd bet some of the board members that pressured Eich to resign agreed with his stance. The fact of the matter is, having him as the face and head of the organization was costing them money. You can argue whether or not the boycott was right, but you would've made the same decision if you were on that board.

      So, would Apple fire Tim Cook if he said he was against gay marriage? I can't say for sure, but given Apple's userbase, I bet the answer would be yes.

    17. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      It has a menu bar and the menu bar can be left permanently enabled, so the GUI conforms better to Windows 3.0 / Motif UI guidelines than the competition.
      About FirefoxOS, the main wtf is the lack of ad blocking (though manually adding a hosts file by using a PC from the command line might be a workaround). Else the lack of "applications" is the main feature. Well better yet don't use a fucking smartphone then you'll be able to look at people around you instead of spending 10 minutes writing text messages to your trashy girlfriend.

    18. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by cerberusti · · Score: 1

      Public opinion these days is that discrimination against a person based on attributes which cannot easily be changed is a problem.

      A person may hate anybody they want, but as CEO he was the face of their business. If their CEO had spoken out on the wrong side during the civil rights movement he would also face some social issues. That is probably the closest analogy to what is currently happening with homosexuality. I expect the social consequences of speaking out in favor of discrimination to become increasingly negative.

      The main difference between "defending traditional marriage" and supporting same sex marriage is that the former is attempting to restrict the actions of another person based on an attribute they cannot change. In this case it harms nobody to allow two consenting adults to marry each other, so it is difficult to come up with a valid reason to deny them access to the same government processes and protections which a heterosexual couple would be able to legally enjoy.

      Separate but equal is also generally accepted to rarely be equal, so marriage it is.

      I really do not care much either, as being a heterosexual white male most discrimination does not affect me. Despite that, I do see how unfair it is to deny this to somebody based upon who they love.

      If he got his way and gay marriage was entirely banned, it would not affect him at all (presumably he would not consent to marry another man.) He is trying to restrict the freedom of others because he does not approve of who they are, and I do have serious objections to placing that kind of person in a position of power (even at a private organization.)

      --
      I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
    19. Re: SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by thunderclap · · Score: 1

      This is a common people with the term 'Freedom of Speech'.
      Freedom of Speech doesn't mean 'Freedom to say anything to anyone about anything without consequences.' Or 'Freedom to say wholly offensive things and no receive consequences for it'. That Freedom has never existed. Nor will it ever exist because human nature won't allow that.
      it is better called by its real name: Speech Anarchy. So what is 'Freedom of Speech'? “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
      Theodore Roosevelt
      “I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
      James Madison
      “If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it."
      Thomas Jefferson, The Inaugural Speeches and Messages of Thomas Jefferson, Esq First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801.
      So what does these men have in common. Speech referencing the govt.
      Freedom of Speech is 'freedom to speak ill about the govt, to suggest they are fools or need to do better without consequences.'
      The First Amendment as the Founders penned it was designed with the sole intention of prohibiting the United States Government from interfering with States’ rights. That is why we are a UNION of 50 states not like Russia or china or even Britain.

    20. Re: SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by linuxrocks123 · · Score: 1

      By all accounts, the board of directors at Mozilla absolutely did not pressure or force him to resign. He resigned on his own because /he/ thought the issue was distracting, and it would be better for him to go.

      This is believable: Eich is the inventor of JavaScript and has been with the Netscape code base almost since day 1. He has a lot invested in Firefox and I'm sure doesn't want a bunch of idiots bringing it down because they don't personally like him, which is what was happening.

      --
      vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
    21. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by linuxrocks123 · · Score: 1

      All available evidence indicates the board of directors of the Mozilla Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, did not oust him from his position as CEO of the Mozilla Corporation. He left on his own. The guy has been a technical leader of the Netscape codebase for literally decades, and I'm sure he wanted to do what was best for the organization.

      --
      vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
    22. Re: SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      You're being idiotic.

      Here's another example: the CEO of Chick-Fil-A has a change of heart and decides to become a Satanist, and makes public statements to this effect. Should Chick-Fil-A be allowed to fire him? Of course; they're an openly Christian company, and that CEO reflects poorly on that.

      It doesn't matter what you think is OK or not. The only thing that matters is what the Board of Directors of a company thinks is OK; if the CEO is not aligned with that, then the BoD has every right to terminate him. It's right there in his employment contract; every CEO has a contract which says the company has the right to terminate him if they don't like the job he's doing or they don't think he's representing their company well. Companies which espouse progressive ideals have every right to fire CEOs who publicly hold non-progressive views. Similarly, companies which espouse conservative Christian ideals have every right to fire CEOs who don't uphold their values (ones who aren't also Christian, or ones who get caught in affairs and things like that).

    23. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      It doesn't matter.

      If someone digs up some dirt on Chick-Fil-A's CEO and finds he used to do gay porn movies, he's going to get fired because that makes the company look bad to its customers (conservative Christians).

      This is no different.

    24. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      So you're saying your work should be able to control your religious beliefs. Sure...

      Yes, when you're CEO, it should and it does.

      Will Chick-Fil-A or Hobby Lobby hire a CEO who isn't Christian?

    25. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by enter+to+exit · · Score: 1

      The real reason Eich was ousted was because he is a competent engineer who was a threat to the Mozilla bureaucracy. They found "dirt" on him years before he was CEO (someone must have been looking) and used it drum up outrage.

      This sort of strategy is a double-edged sword. It is very exhausting for everyone involved and soon becomes very convoluted with hypocritical exceptions. Most of us hold at least one opinion that is not the majority viewpoint and should be more humble when issuing judgements on someone else's beliefs.

      This sort of suppression of opinion manifests itself in unexpected ways, and makes any victory a cause has tenuous. People should be outvoted not assaulted through mob-rule.

    26. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Most of us hold at least one opinion that is not the majority viewpoint

      Irrelevant. The "majority viewpoint" doesn't matter, only the viewpoint of the Board of Directors of a company. If the CEO doesn't fit with that, then he's out. It doesn't matter if it's some progressive-politics-espousing company like Apple, or some conservative Christian company like Hobby Lobby; at either one, if the CEO get involved in some publicity that makes the company look bad to its preferred audience, he's out. At Apple, if he comes out as a homophobe, he'll be fired, whereas at Hobby Lobby they'd consider that a good thing, and would fire him if he came out in favor of gay marriage.

      This is the whole problem here; all these conservative Christian Slashdotters are butt-hurt because someone got fired for being anti-gay-marriage, but they'd have no problem if some CEO at a conservative company got fired for being pro-gay-marriage.

    27. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      It doesn't matter when it was done.

      If Hobby Lobby's CEO used to act in gay porn movies years ago, and someone dug that up and posted it on the internet, he'd be fired too.

    28. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by skegg · · Score: 1

      he did not lose his freedom of speech at all; freedom of speech != freedom from any and all ramifications.

      So in your version of the USA, people can say whatever they like, and consequently be (fired | publicly shamed | arrested | executed) and you consider that freedom of speech?

      I'd hate to think what you consider to be a LACK of freedom of speech! Cutting-out of tongue at birth?

    29. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by CauseBy · · Score: 1

      You are completely correct, but more to the point, no worker has to work for a douchebag. Forget about CEOs losing privacy, or whatever, the bottom line is that if an employee thinks the CEO is a dick then the employee can get the hell out. And if they'd rather the CEO get the hell out instead, then they can go to the board and complain. That will only work if the CEO is in fact such a fartsniffer that a huge swatch of essential employees all threaten to walk unless he quits.

      That unfathomably unlikely scenario played out at Mozilla because of the elite-level assholery of Eich. So Eich can suck it, he was less important than the entire group of engineers, and the board chose the right path to preserve the company.

      Kudos to the rare few workers who have the temerity and opportunity to unseat a jerk boss.

    30. Re: SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by CauseBy · · Score: 1

      That's a real-world example like Hitler time-traveling to become the CEO of Disney is a real-world example.

    31. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      When he did what he did he wasn't the CEO

      When he did something does not matter. Your actions define your persona, the persona defines the company you portray.

    32. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by foreverdisillusioned · · Score: 1

      It would be considered unacceptable if a homosexual was forced out of a job for supporting same-sex marriage, and it should be considered just as unacceptable if a heterosexual was forced out of a job for not supporting same-sex marriage. This is no place for hypocrisy or double standards.

      In other words: "Odious beliefs rooted in superstition must be treated exactly the same as egalitarian beliefs; otherwise, you are a hypocrite!"

      Um, no. I'm not totally comfortable with his dismissal (the details of this specific case make it a tricky gray area, unlike the rather clear-cut situation with Orson Scott Card), but this statement is complete nonsense. Tolerance of group X does not imply tolerating people who are intolerant of group X. If this isn't immediately self-evident then please let me know. I'd be happy to give you an apt, Godwin-ed analogy.

    33. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Maybe, but I think you're overestimating the power of the workers. In Mozilla's case, Eich stepped down voluntarily (at least that's the public story), because of all the bad press that was happening, and that was coming from the users and the general public, not from the employees. While his views on gay marriage obviously suck, he's probably a fairly decent guy otherwise and wanted what's best for Mozilla, something he's worked on for a very long time, so to him it was probably better that he remove himself from the situation so that Mozilla could thrive again.

      But for other companies, they really don't care about the workers, and large numbers of workers are not going to leave because the CEO is a douche. We've seen this in countless companies. Look how long Steve Ballmer ran MS for instance. CEOs get kicked out when the board disagrees with them; that's the bottom line. It's usually over a disagreement in how to run the company (direction), or unhappiness with the choices they've made, but it can also be over the CEO's personal life making them look bad (scandal).

    34. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Lisias · · Score: 1

      When he did something does not matter. Your actions define your persona, the persona defines the company you portray.

      I agree. Mozilla became a utterly bullshit load of a company after his resign.

      --
      Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
    35. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Lennie · · Score: 1

      I agree Mozilla made a bad choice making him CEO, but I guess they didn't know about what they did...? I don't remember if that applies.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    36. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by Xtifr · · Score: 1

      Well, yes. But the paranoid Social Injustice Warriors who believe that Mozilla has become part of an ebul liberal plot to undermine western society and force us to all become devil worshippers and give Hugo awards only to registered members of the Communist party also believe that he was secretly forced to resign, and since the question wasn't relevant to my point, I decided to skirt the issue. But that is why I chose the (admittedly ambiguous) phrase "let him go." No matter who actually made the decision, the foundation certainly allowed it. :)

    37. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by metamatic · · Score: 1

      Then there was the whole Eich debacle. Regardless of your stance, it's pretty disgusting that somebody had to lose his job merely because of his beliefs regarding same-sex marriages.

      He didn't lose his job merely because of his beliefs regarding same-sex marriages.

      He lost his job because he spent money attempting to get laws passed which would prevent people, including his employees, from getting married. That made it hard for him to be a leader for those employees, so he resigned his position.

      If he had merely had opinions, there wouldn't have been an issue.

      But hey, don't let the actual facts get in the way of a dishonest misstatement of the situation.

      --
      GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
    38. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by toddestan · · Score: 1

      Actually, it's pretty damn simple to embed an MSHTML control into a Windows application, which you can use to make your own IE-based browser. Almost certainly easier than trying to start with Webkit/Chromium. However, said browser will only run on Windows.

    39. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by CauseBy · · Score: 1

      Once again you are totally correct. I don't doubt that Eich quit on his own decision, but I do think he stepped down because he knew it would all fall apart anyway. The board would have slipped him a note a few days later so he pulled a Nixon. He was mostly diplomatic about it, good for him. And yes, it's very very rare that workers can mount that kind of opposition. I can also point to that grocery store case recently. Good for them! That is the best possible scenario for worker action.

    40. Re:SAVE US AND THE WEB FROM MOZILLA! by gfxguy · · Score: 1

      he did not lose his freedom of speech at all; freedom of speech != freedom from any and all ramifications.

      So in your version of the USA, people can say whatever they like, and consequently be (fired | publicly shamed | arrested | executed) and you consider that freedom of speech?

      I'd hate to think what you consider to be a LACK of freedom of speech! Cutting-out of tongue at birth?

      No, that's not what I said, but thanks for trying. Arrested and executed are functions of government, the government cannot limit your freedom of speech. Getting fired from a private corporation (which is not even what happened, but I'll play along) is not a violation of free speech.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
  15. Re:Also, stop supporting sites with poor encryptio by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1

    .now, if EVERY browser did this, that's another story..

    Well, I've put in a similar request with Chrome.

  16. Choice, not force. by Tablizer · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I hope they give a setting choice similar to:

    * Block all non-HTTPS sites
    * Prompt on all non-HTTPS sites (view/no-view confirmation, perhaps with a "remember choice for this site" option.)
    * Automatically allow all non-HTTPS sites, with a yellow warning bar and disabling of JavaScript.
    * Automatically allow all non-HTTPS sites, with a yellow warning bar.
    * Automatically allow all non-HTTPS sites, withOUT a warning bar.

    (There may be a way to simplify this by putting some of the questions in the warning bar.)

    Mozilla has gotten brazen lately about forcing questionable changes on users in the name of progress (per their view of "progress"). This includes forced tabs*, goofy search bar "split" (eventually fixed), and disabling "back" on POST forms (instead of prompting). They gave very round-about and fishy reasons for all 3 of these.

    * Fortunately somebody created a "Hide tab bar for 1 tab" addon. Thank You, Fixers!

    1. Re:Choice, not force. by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      But these corporations never allow choice.

      Unlike Open Source (Unity)?

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    2. Re:Choice, not force. by qaz123 · · Score: 1

      What you are offering is not a choice. If people are presented with scary warnings when visiting your website then your are FORCED to buy a certificate for your website otherwise you are going to lose much of your traffic

  17. Armin Ronacher's blog post by debrain · · Score: 2

    Unintended Affordances
    (or why I believe encrypting everything is a bad idea) is worth a read on this.

    I am not sure I agree on every point, but it's well thought out post.

  18. Authenticity, but not always secrecy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    HTTP needs to be phased out, but that doesn't mean everything needs to be encrypted. A lot of sites serve static content thats not a secret to anyone. Even in an encrypted stream, the contents of static files isn't really a secret. What you don't want is some man in the middle intercepting your request for some static file and responding with something malicious like the Great Cannon.

    If static content were signed with the server's cert, its authenticity could be verified more cheaply than with HTTPS. This would also leave open the possibility for network cacheing, which benefits hosts, ISPs, and reduces traffic on the entire route. You'd want the content signing to cover the HTTP headers, and probably require an "expires" header.

    With this approach, you could red flag all HTTP traffic as insecure, and signed traffic could be shown as normal.

    Trying to mix content is more of a problem. It may be possible to securely deliver HTTPS dynamic content mixed with just-signed static content, but that'd probably get screwed up too often to leave that option open.

  19. Self-signed by Dwedit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Okay, but if you're going to do that, you might want to throw out all the incredibly dire warnings about self-signed certificates. Nobody should be forced to pay a cartel for SSL certificates.

    Instead, throw out the dire warnings when the self-signed certificates aren't correct, such as when it changes.

    1. Re:Self-signed by Strider- · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Okay, but if you're going to do that, you might want to throw out all the incredibly dire warnings about self-signed certificates. Nobody should be forced to pay a cartel for SSL certificates.

      It's gets worse. Chrome throws the dire warnings on self-signed SSL certificates, and then refuses to do the username/password autofill on those pages. I've basically ditched using chrome for most of my network admin stuff that goes over https, because of this.

      --
      ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
    2. Re:Self-signed by H0p313ss · · Score: 1

      Contrariwise, what we need is a trustable CA that gives out free certificates.

      --
      XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
    3. Re:Self-signed by Wrath0fb0b · · Score: 1

      If you are not willing to spend the 30 minutes it takes to set up your own CA and and deploy that cert on your own desktop, please hand in you "network admin" card immediately and seek alternative employment.

    4. Re:Self-signed by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      This is exactly what the Let's Encrypt standard will do.

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    5. Re:Self-signed by sconeu · · Score: 1

      Have you looked at cacert.org?

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  20. Can we please fix certificates and CAs first? by bradley13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    HTTPS is all well and good, but the certificate situation is just a mess. Currently, essentially any CA can issue a certificate for any website anywhere. That means that every time you surf, you are placing your trust in literally hundreds of CAs.

    Meanwhile, self-signed certificates bring up horrendous warnings, or are simply refused. The chance of verifying a self-signed certificate (for example, getting the fingerprint via another channel) are a lot better than the chance of verifying that some random CA hasn't been bribed or pressured.

    Can we please fix this mess, along the way to making HTTPS standard?

    --
    Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
    1. Re:Can we please fix certificates and CAs first? by kthreadd · · Score: 1

      Especially since Firefox' certificates are hard-coded. Good luck removing untrustworthy CAs without recompiling the sourcecode.

      That's easily done through the Certificate Manager.

  21. Yes, but.. by Junta · · Score: 2

    Wireshark is a useful debugging tool. The ability to snap off encryption to analyze things at the wire is a lifesaver.

    That said, if I'm debugging something a browser is doing, the developer console is usually better anyway. There remains the case where you are trying to debug a tester's experience without access to their browser, but the scenarios where that is true *and* it would be a good idea to disable TLS are limited. Being able to disable encryption is more important for clients that aren't so developer-enabled.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    1. Re:Yes, but.. by swillden · · Score: 1

      That said, if I'm debugging something a browser is doing, the developer console is usually better anyway.

      Yes, it is, and the same holds everywhere. Being able to grab the data on the wire has long been an easy way to get sort of what you want to see, but it's almost never exactly what you're really looking for. HTTPS will force us to hook in elsewhere to debug, but the "elsewhere" will almost certainly be a better choice anyway.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    2. Re:Yes, but.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You can import the server's private key into wireshark, and it will strip of the encryption automatically - no need to disable it at the server to be able to see the http in the trace.

    3. Re:Yes, but.. by LDAPMAN · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you have the private key, packet sniffing works fine.

    4. Re:Yes, but.. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      If you're trying to write software which bypasses the browser and does HTTPS directly, using Wireshark is extremely useful for debugging, and not easily replaced any other way.

    5. Re:Yes, but.. by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      If you have the private key, packet sniffing works fine.

      This message has been brought to you by your friends at the NSA!

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    6. Re:Yes, but.. by Junta · · Score: 1

      the same holds everywhere.

      Now I won't go that far. 'everywhere' is a pretty gigantic scope. There are many scenarios where there are no viable debug capabilities on either end of the connection (either because no such capability is implemented *or* you are dealing with some 'clever' appliance that blocks you from access.

      Besides, wireshark's dissectors are incredibly useful, and usually beyond other things ability to decode. In the case of *browsers* specifically it's not true these days, but plenty of networking things aren't at that level.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    7. Re:Yes, but.. by Junta · · Score: 1

      Yes, in that scenario, you aren't restricted by firefox's proposed BS. Disabling https would break mozilla browser access, but not such software.

      I still think it's an inadequately thought out concept (I also question the wisdom of 'the only network protocol is http' mentality in the world), but out-of-browser development shouldn't be hurt too badly.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    8. Re:Yes, but.. by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      The ability to snap off encryption to analyze things at the wire is a lifesaver.

      I think you will find that actually debugging code is sooo twentieth century. Get with it - these days, the game is to add a couple of new bugs every week, and claim its an upgrade.

      And no! I can't even see your lawn from here.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    9. Re:Yes, but.. by l_km_n · · Score: 1

      then what is all the fuzz about perfect forward secrecy? try to decrypt some traffic with a diffie hellman key exchange, could be pretty hard even if you have the private key.

    10. Re: Yes, but.. by amxcoder · · Score: 1

      Unless your developing for an embedded platform that doesnt have a browser. Then the only was to debug is to use a laptop running wireshark to see what is going on and how to fix the bugs.

    11. Re: Yes, but.. by swillden · · Score: 1

      That's one way. There are always other options. The key is to hook in at the layer that you're debugging. The wire is almost never that layer, unless you're debugging the network card driver. Or the hardware, but in that case Wireshark (or Ethereal, as I still think of it in my head) is usually too high-level.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  22. Precisely this... by Junta · · Score: 1

    While TLS *could* be secure, I've been in too many discussions where it is assumed to be the only way to be secure and that it is secure in spite of the current state of CAs and the practical behavior of internal servers with respect to certificates.

    There really needs to be more critical discussion along this front, as I see quite reasonable security strategies that fare well in the *real* world torn up and replaced with TLS because of an idealized view of how it could be implemented.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  23. HTTP insecure? by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 1

    Doesn't that depend on the configuration and purpose? If the HTTP server's running on my own machine and the URL is "http://localhost/...", am I automatically insecure because I can't get an SSL certificate for "localhost"? And how would an attacker not already on my machine exploit this?

    If I can't test the full capabilities of a Web site because the browser won't let me, I'm going to have to switch browsers and relegate Firefox to testing-only just like IE is currently.

  24. What about virtual hosts by flink · · Score: 1

    There are still plenty of clients out there that support neither SNI nor IP6, so the implication of everyone going to SSL is that everyone needs a static IP4 address. That sounds unsustainable to me.

    1. Re:What about virtual hosts by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      I was wondering about that. It's been a number of years since I've had to worry about configuring Apache but when I did it was for a government department that had a fair number of virtual hosts. Most of then didn't have HTTPS so they were all grouped onto one IP address and used a virtual host to configure them. But if they all needed to be on HTTPS and you still can't use a virtual host for configuration then I can see that being a huge pain for them. The web configuration isn't too bad but it would involve another department to order the external IP addresses, the network group to configure them, set up the firewall rules, and switches, and the sysadmins to set up the servers with the new internal IP addresses. Not that the work itself is very difficult but when you factor in all of the forms that needed to be filled in (they were very big on ITIL) plus meetings and scheduling in when the work could be done it would take quite a while to do this project.

      I don't miss that job at all.

    2. Re:What about virtual hosts by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      This has not been the case for a long, long time.
       
      All major web server software will allow virtual hosts on shared IPs using Server Name Indication which has been part of the TLS standard since version 1.0

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    3. Re:What about virtual hosts by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I only half read your post. You are right, I am wrong.

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
  25. no DNSSEC+DANE certficate validation by ftobin · · Score: 4, Informative

    It would be nice if they focused on fixing the certificate authority structure by supporting DANE, using DNS records to indicate certificates. Even though there is plenty of interest at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/s... , Mozilla doesn't seem interested in solving this problem:
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/s...

    1. Re:no DNSSEC+DANE certficate validation by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

      Because they are sponsoring a nonprofit to give out certs.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
  26. Yet another reason by JohnFen · · Score: 3, Informative

    Thanks, Mozilla, for yet another reason to stop using Firefox.

    1. Re:Yet another reason by PvtVoid · · Score: 2

      Thanks, Mozilla, for yet another reason to stop using Firefox.

      You'd think that they would take a hint from their declining usage, instead of doing crazier and crazier shit.

    2. Re:Yet another reason by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      At the rate that Google is going with their crusade against insecurity, I believe it is only a matter of time before they follow suite with Chrome.

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    3. Re:Yet another reason by JohnFen · · Score: 1

      That's OK. I already avoid Chrome to the greatest extent that I can.

  27. Re:I'm not necessarily against the idea but... by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

    Just decouple the traffic encryption and the identity verification already.

    --
    All hope abandon ye who enter here.
  28. Stuck at 36 by Bigbutt · · Score: 1

    Can't upgrade since it causes me to be locked out of the Windows domains at work if I go to 37.

    [John]

    --
    Shit better not happen!
  29. Re:Sooo... by PvtVoid · · Score: 2

    You almost got the message correctly. The right message is no should ever develop for mozilla, or chrome, or internet explorer, or opera, or any other browser in particular. Developers should be able to develop using standards, and the browsers should correctly display content based on standards.

    So ... when did http cease to be a standard?

  30. Re:Also, stop supporting sites with poor encryptio by swillden · · Score: 1

    My bank still insists on using RC4 ciphers and TLS 1.

    If Firefox were to stop supporting the bank's insecure website, it would surely get their attention better than I've been able to.

    What bank is this? There's nothing wrong with public shaming in cases like this, in fact it does the world a service.

    Also, you should seriously consider switching banks. Your post prompted me to check the banks I use. One is great, one is okay. I'll watch the okay one.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  31. Re:Also, stop supporting sites with poor encryptio by david672orford · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My bank still insists on using RC4 ciphers and TLS 1.

    If Firefox were to stop supporting the bank's insecure website, it would surely get their attention better than I've been able to.

    As others have pointed out, they might claim that the latest Firefox was defective and encourage users to stay at an old version or switch browsers "until it is fixed". Once such decisions are written into policy, front line workers unwittingly protect the decision makers from having to find out that they were wrong. They will simple 'teach' the users one-by-one to 'fix the problem' by installing a different browser.

    It would be better to have Firefox warn that the site had "outdated security" or something like that. The warnings could start out hardly noticeable and gradually become more conspicuous. It could start with a subtle change in the lock icon, then a mild click through warning, then a warning with a scary graphic and phrases such as "proceed at your own risk".

    The idea is to get the message in front of as many Firefox using customers as possible before the businesses are aware of it. This makes it instantly a "a well-known security flaw in our website" rather than a "known problem with a version of Firefox used by two customers".

    At that point they can either fix their website or block Firefox. But now if they block Firefox the reason will be widely known and the bank subject to public ridicule.

  32. US CAs are a risk... by bradley13 · · Score: 1

    Um, you write: "[CA] could issue a bogus certificate in your name whether you work with them or not" and also "Your CA being in the US isn't a risk".

    That's kind of a contradiction. Ok, so where my CA is located isn't the issue, but given "National Security Letters" and all, I'd say allowing any CA in the US to issue certificates is a risk, at least for non-US domains.

    --
    Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
    1. Re:US CAs are a risk... by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      I think people are coming at this from two sides. On the one side, there's the possibility of trusted CAs issuing duplicate certs for the same namespace. You can't really avoid this if you accept those CAs as trusted; the risk is the same no matter which CA you actually use.

      However, on the other side, you have CAs being beholden to a local government, looking at rejection of certs, not acceptance. If I have a cert signed by a CA in a country that disagrees with something I post on my website, they can revoke my cert, preventing all access to my site without even going through the domain registrars.

      And if you look at it this way, you can see that the upcoming CA issues will go down the exact same path Domain Registrars have walked for the past 20 years. From a deployment standpoint, there's really no difference between the two: they both involve a federated central authority that assigns a specific value to a specific grantee, to enable others to access said grantee. As the cost decreases, the abuse increases, as seen recently with such things as .ninja domains and their abuse. Free certs will be abused in similar ways.

      So the only real benefit is that your encrypted data will be hidden amongst other encrypted data in transit, making on-the-wire (or on-the-wifi) analysis much more difficult. Verifying the endpoints and avoiding certificate abuse will become much more difficult, as there will be much more data to sort through. Even crowd-sourcing the reputation of certs can be gamed, if the abusers are anticipating it.

  33. Re:Sooo... by PvtVoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Car analogy time: Mozilla wants everyone to use paved roads so car drivers can see hazards more effectively.

    Continued car analogy: Mozilla, to this end, builds a car that shuts down when you try to drive it on a dirt road. Why would anybody want to buy a car that did that?

  34. Re:Also, stop supporting sites with poor encryptio by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

    You should find another bank.

    Yep. There are plenty of banks to choose from that - whatever their other flaws - at least take security seriously. If your bank can't or won't lock down their website, then you already know that they're negligent in at least one area. What else are they neglecting?

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  35. Re:Also, stop supporting sites with poor encryptio by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

    If you look you will find that pretty much every bank has RC4 as their top cipher in the list. This is due to the fact that, while relatively weak, there are no known attacks against the cipher itself (other than brute force).

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
  36. Re:Abuse of power by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

    Universal encryption is much better for us consumers than the current situation.

    What current situation? Care to clarify? Most of current day total 0wnage of Internet users has nothing to do with insecure transports and will continue totally unimpeded long after all the transports are "encrypted".

    The core problem here the larger you make trust anchors the more incentive exists for adversaries to co-opt them. People look at proliferation of PKI as a positive thing... I don't... I see it as disaster waiting to happen like overprescribing anti-biotics and getting doubly fucked over when it becomes useless.

    Global trust anchors play an important role but we need to take responsibility for trust ourselves and diversify as quickly as possible away from them as more localized sources are established...otherwise we will continue to live in our fantasy world where centralized content and security is swell as it represents our best interests. It isn't and won't.

    But the government refuses to mandate it, because the government doesn't represent us.

    In the US we have a representational democracy. Technology companies are not democracies. I can't write my Mozilla or Google representative or senator to complain... in fact there is often little to no governance structure of any kind. The only means of influence most users have is the ear of their sales rep and associated threat of jumping ship. In this case Firefox is free and site operators don't have any practical say.

    It isn't always wrong to use force.

    I was not arguing for pacifism only the folly of assuming ends justify means.

    It depends on what you use if for and what the consequences of not using it are. In this case, using force is clearly the right thing to do.

    So what are the consequences? Why is it clearly the right thing to do? Can you even articulate the problem?

  37. Craigslist by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    Last time I tried, https didn't work. Kinda surprised me.

  38. Re:Abuse of power by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

    This is done ALL THE TIME by too many entities to even count. The only time this is potentially bad is when it is done in self interest. This is clearly not the case here.
     
    In this case, the encryption is not about asserting identity, it is about encrypting the data stream from point-to-point. This solves a lot of issues that currently plague the Internet as a whole while, at the same time, introducing new problems which will need to be worked out.
     
    I believe this is a move in the right direction and can only help people be more secure, not less.

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
  39. Re:Abuse of power by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

    This is done ALL THE TIME by too many entities to even count.

    Well then as long as other people are doing it too then it must be ok.

    The only time this is potentially bad is when it is done in self interest.

    Was this intended to be a tautology? What does any company do that can't be viewed from the prism of self interest? Charitable contributions = PR + Tax benefit. Giving shit away = Free advertising + support + advertising revenue.

    This is clearly not the case here.

    Clearly.

    In this case, the encryption is not about asserting identity,

    Well then its worthless.

    In this case, the encryption is not about asserting identity, it is about encrypting the data stream from point-to-point.

    If you don't know who you are talking to why does it matter that the data stream is encrypted in the first place? What when the other "point" is the front page of the New York times or some random haxor at your friendly neighborhood Starbucks WiFi?

    This solves a lot of issues that currently plague the Internet as a whole while

    A lot of issues that currently plague... What are you talking about?

    I believe this is a move in the right direction and can only help people be more secure, not less.

    No question you believe it. But why? Because it solves a lot of unspecified issues?

  40. Re:I'm not necessarily against the idea but... by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

    Even with the identity verification, the encryption is not a guarantee against the MITM.

    Because the man (the one in the middle) could have hijacked the certificate.

    The oft quoted example here is the China injecting the JS into the unencrypted traffic. They probably do not even need to hack anything to hijack the certificate - they likely already have the laws which force the CA to hand over the certificates legally. And once that happens, back you are at the drawing board.

    Decoupling at least allows the two technologies (A) to be developed independently and (B) to be easier replaced.

    --
    All hope abandon ye who enter here.
  41. Re:I'm not necessarily against the idea but... by blackjackshellac · · Score: 1

    As long as I can continue to create exceptions for self-signed certs. I have a bad feeling about this though, from both google and mozilla.

    If the letsencrypt project delivers then I'll gladly use them to create validated certs.

    No question that the current certification system is a scam.

    --
    Salut,

    Jacques

  42. Re:Also, stop supporting sites with poor encryptio by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

    It would be better to have Firefox warn that the site had "outdated security" or something like that. The warnings could start out hardly noticeable and gradually become more conspicuous.

    You mean like the unending stream of "security policy violation" messages that some sites trigger by, IIRC, mixing https and http content? The popups that come so fast that you can't get rid of one and stop loading the page before the next one comes up? And then you need to try to get through a dozen of them before doing anything else, except killing one causes two more to pop up?

    That kind of "hardly noticeable"? Firefix has a history of not dealing with "security policy" warnings intelligently.

    The idea is to get the message in front of as many Firefox using customers as possible before the businesses are aware of it.

    That's the kind of action that causes websites to stop supporting browsers. If a specific browser prevents the user from accessing a website, then the business will ultimately react, but it can't do it by just waving a magic wand. Their support will be telling people that the browser is no longer supported -- because that's the truth.

    At that point they can either fix their website or block Firefox.

    They won't have to block firefox, firefox will be blocking itself.

    But now if they block Firefox the reason will be widely known and the bank subject to public ridicule.

    Haha haha. Most people won't understand why, and most people won't care. They'll use a browser that works, and since that browser can deal with it, it will be firefox that's broken.

  43. Re:Also, stop supporting sites with poor encryptio by JohnFen · · Score: 1

    But now if they block Firefox the reason will be widely known and the bank subject to public ridicule.

    Haha haha. Most people won't understand why, and most people won't care.

    And then there will be people like me: who understand why, and still don't care. If Firefox stops working with web sites I need to go to, I'll just stop using Firefox. I'm already a long way there: there is an increasing number of websites that Firefox doesn't work well with, and so I have to use a different browser for them.

    Yes, the browser wars are on their way back.

  44. Re:Abuse of power by JohnFen · · Score: 1

    I believe this is a move in the right direction and can only help people be more secure, not less.

    I'm very much in favor of end-to-end encryption of all things. That said, I think this is a seriously bad move on the part of Mozilla.

    There's a pretty huge difference between helping people to be more secure and forcing people to be more secure. Mozilla is forcing people. This is Mozilla attacking people so they'll do what Mozilla has deemed to be The Right Thing. That it is indeed The Right Thing in no way excuses using the tactic of force.

  45. Re:Sooo... by rHBa · · Score: 1

    Nah, it's more like Mozilla won't let you drive without a seatbelt, even if you're on a mobility scooter in a sealed off car park.

  46. How about sane warnings? by mcrbids · · Score: 1

    As it is now, you are not notified of security issues when you have no security whatsoever. HTTP sites should be given a dire, red warning because they represent the least secure position online. An SSL site with an expired certificate is far more desirable than an HTTP website.

    Green should represent proper SSL certificates, as it does now.

    But there's one more problem with SSL/HTTPS sites that nobody talks about: the fake SSL certificate. Your browser *probably* trust a multitude of SSL certificate vendors, and *any* of them can issue a certificate for *any* domain.

    So there are literally hundreds of SSL certificate vendors that could issue a cert for google.com or whatever, and you wouldn't know. If the NSA offered a bit of $$ to a commonly trusted (but otherwise unheard of) certificate vendor to issue a few certificates to be used discreetly....

    See the problem?

    If I go to Thawte or RapidSSL to get a cert, I should have the ability to publish my vendor of choice, and nobody else's certificates should be considered trustworthy. Similarly, I should be able to publish revoked certificates the same way.

    Why hasn't this already been done?

    --
    I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
  47. Use cases for http by buchanmilne · · Score: 1

    It seems Mozilla wants to move away from http, but here are some use cases they will be breaking:

    I have a slow and expensive Internet connection used by a few people on a few different devices, I use a proxy-cache to improve page load times and reduce network traffic.

    I am a parent, and while I try to be present whenever the kids use the internet, I run a proxy-filter (e.g. DansGuardian) to prevent them from stumbling across less suitable sites.

    I am a service provider, and I use a transparent proxy to cache large files downloaded from international sites. This saves me about 10% of my running costs.

    I am a service provider provoding internet access with high input costs, in order to provide reasonably-priced services I have quota-based products. In order to be friendly to my customers and avoid them incurring over-use charges, I inject JS notifications at various thresholds. With only HTTPS, I will just have to wait until they are over quota and then block all HTTPS traffic and hope I can redirect some HTTP traffic to a page informing them that they are over quota.

    I am a security engineer for my company, for various reasons we need to be able to inspect http traffic (prevent users from visiting malicious sites, enforce productivity controls etc.).

    Sure, there are technical means around some of these challenges (e.g. devices that ship with/use CA certs and dynamically generate SSL certs to MITM the traffic), but this initiative is just going to increase costs for everyone.

    And who will benefit? Well, most of the main sponsors of Let's encrypt. Cisco will be selling you more network equipment that can MITM SSL, Akamai will get more business as ISPs will not be able to cache on their own and content owners will have to pay Akamai instead.

    Maybe some affected parties will start blocking Firefox (or block ssl upgrade checks), or some service providers may start charging Firefox users more.

    I am a supporter of open source and have used Firefox as my primary browser since before the 1.0 release, but some of the supposed security braindeadness has made life more difficult, and this is just another example, and may be the one that forces me to change to a web browser, instead of an HTTPS-only browser.

  48. The Services of the Internet need a redo - big tim by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    With all this hassle for updating the web recently, including the permanent surveilance by Facebook/WhatCrap/Whatever, the Snowden leaks and the NSA/BND disasters and the broaded discussion about encrypting services it's becoming more and more evident that we need a complete bottom-up redo of all popular services on the internet.

    The most pressing and obvious is E-Mail, which, by any standard imanginable is about the worst protocol and service still in widespread use. But before that can happen properly, there's another thing that should be redone befor everything else: DNS.
    DNS needs to be abstracted away from the carriers and core services into something based on cryptographic signature. It should be possible for me to buy a domain for life simply by purchasing a slip or paper or a piece of code containing a register key to which I can tie a domain that is still free for choosing. Moving to a different provider with my domain or hosting it on my own small VM should be a matter of minutes.

    Next up would be E-Mail. Zero-fuss end-to-end encryption and cpu-expensive hashing to make mass-mail expensive and spamming virtually impossible. Setting up a mailserver should be as easy as setting up a mail client today. In fact, it should be much of a difference wetther I'm setting up a client or a server - one of the big problems with E-Mail today.

    Next up would be the Web. Let's face the facts: The Web today is a pile of junk. It's only thanks to Netscape freeing its browser (Mozilla) and Goolgle buying V8 and fighting for a free (beer) web that benefits their business that we have a half-way feasible free web. Flash - and I'm sorry to break this to the /. crowd - was lightyears ahead of everything else on the client-based web. CSS3 / HTML5 and JS are a joke in comparsion. Clients are strange hacks with arcane technologies strapped together with glue and duct-tape, doing insane stunts and feats to build rich clients. The entire service could use a complete redo for design/UX, documents and programming. Javascript is neat and fun, but I can think of a few PLs that would do a better job, be easyer to use and perhaps even easyer to compile into binary.

    Moving the Web into https is all fine and dandy - it's using FOSS technology and open standards - which is always the main big plus - but yet again it's only a dirty hack compared to what would be possible if we would base a rebuilt web-like service on what is technologically possible today.

    My 2 cents.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  49. Re:I'm not necessarily against the idea but... by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

    HTTPS is already designed with that kind of decoupling in mind. But it wouldn't make sense to offer encryption without identity verification to the end-user, because that would make the encryption useless, so any protocol that does encryption has to do both.

    I know that. That's basic AAA.

    Also note that for an effective MITM attack you would need to have new certificate for which you have got the private key. There are a number of things that will make this increasingly difficult in the future, like certificate pinning, increased willingness of browsers and OS vendors to blacklist CAs, and increased monitoring for rogue certificates which makes it easier to find rogue CAs.

    I think you fail to realize the scale, the proportions, of the opposition the browsers face.

    It's not some script kiddies who are threat here.

    That's countries covering close to a half planet's population. They might as well simply outlaw the browsers. In fact, they already do outlaw some encryption software.

    I personally would still argue that the CA system is the Achilles heel of HTTPS but the situation is getting better and it's a matter of time until we get a more distributed and robust way of certificate verification.

    But that's another problem: you can't make CA distributed. CAs are the "single point of failure" which are allowed to be that, based on the promise that they will work hard not to fail. Making it distributed would basically nullify the promise, making the whole CA system vulnerable. IOW, nothing changes.

    --
    All hope abandon ye who enter here.
  50. WTF, why care not to ruin the public image by peacefool · · Score: 1
    ..when they Support Olympics dating back like... forever?!

    This could not go wrong, really (or could it!?).

  51. Bad move - will cost people more money! by Helldesk+Hound · · Score: 1

    This is a bad move and will force people away from using Mozilla because it will mean a Joe Citizen wanting to have a website will need to purchase SSL certificates - at significantly greater cost than the hosting cost of the web host that supplies the web hosting capability.

    I understand the rationale, but very bad move!

  52. Re:Also, stop supporting sites with poor encryptio by onkarshinde · · Score: 1

    Firefox has already done this. Since Firefox 37 the default preference does not allow fall back to TLS 1.0 or 1.1. So if your bank's website is not using TLS 1.2 then you will not be able to connect to it. There is no user friendly UI to change the setting, but you can change the fall back setting using the about:config mechanism. Check the release notes here - https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/... Also SSL labs has already planned to give low grade to websites using RC4 over next few months - https://community.qualys.com/b... You can check the status of your baks security infrastructure with ssl labs scanning tool and complain about it in bank support forum - https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltes... The client I worked for has same problem with some websites and hence started getting calls from customers. Thankfully they have quickly recognised the potential loss of business and are working on upgrading the infrastructure.