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SHA-1 Cutoff Could Block Millions of Users From Encrypted Websites (csoonline.com)
itwbennett writes: As previously reported on Slashdot, browser makers are considering an accelerated retirement of the older and increasingly vulnerable SHA-1 function. But Facebook and CloudFlare are warning some 37 million users of old browsers and operating systems that don't support SHA-2 will be left without access to encrypted websites. The majority of them are located in some of the "poorest, most repressive, and most war-torn countries in the world," CloudFlare's CEO Matthew Prince said Wednesday in a blog post. Facebook has solved this problem by building a mechanism that allows its certificates to be switched automatically based on the browser used by the visitor.
Some of the older Oracle products only support SHA-1. Upgrading to a newer version or Oracle will cost them millions. Won't someone think of the Oracle user base?
So let me see if I understand Facebook's approach here: there are non-secure certificates. Facebook will fix the problem by downgrade connections to use non-secure certificates. Bad guys would never pretend to need a non-secure certificate. Therefore, Facebook remains safe?
John
Some of the older Oracle products only support SHA-1. Upgrading to a newer version or Oracle will cost them millions. Won't someone think of the Oracle user base?
Nonsense. Postgres is free.
I have one of these old browsers, and I'm not being cut off of the we
Fortunately, slashdot will remain accessible as it still hasn't entered the 2010's and added encryption yet!
Problem for PCs is not browser availability or cost, problem is that for some people downloading a GByte of data to install a new browser is not feasible. Also, browsers are in everything now, including smartphones, smart TVs, and Nintendo DS, so you're stuck with what the hardware vendor supplies you. (Don't get me started on my Smart TV not showing videos because most hosts support video using Adobe Flash only, and Adobe refuses to license flash to most hardware manufacturers. HTML5 has been a standard for how many years now?)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
ISIS has their own computer help line. I'd say the terrorists have better IT support than most 'mericans...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
What is the point of developing in the browser if you are only going to support one specific version from one specific vendor?
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Maybe a loss of Internet access is just the jolt they need to get off their butt and upgrade.
Can't upgrade because reasons? Go cry to whomever is creating that problem for you
Such crying would fall on deaf ears, as mobile device manufacturers routinely announced end of support not only for handsets that are still under 2-year financing but also for handsets that are still being sold in stores. And when "whomever" amounts to the "poorest, most repressive, and most war-torn countries in the world," as the article mentions, what recourse does one have?
The problem with that is that there is no actual way to detect that an old browser doesn't support SHA-2.
For example, older versions of Firefox/NSS since 2003 have supported SHA-2 server certificates, but not SHA-2 in TLS cipher suites as the MAC algorithm, which wasn't specified until years later.
The TLS ClientHello message does not specify which types of hash algorithm the client supports for certificates, only the list of cipher suites that the client supports.
Thus, Facebook, or anyone else, has no way of determining if a client really doesn't support SHA-2 server certificates.
What they are probably doing is assuming that clients that don't support SHA-2 MAC in TLS cipher suites . But that's a wrong assumption. Many older clients will be downgraded to SHA-1 server certificates as a result, even though they support SHA-2 certificates. And they will have no way of knowing that this happened.
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
It's irrelevant, anyway - PCI-DSS will mandate it at some point for any site that accepts credit cards (if it hasn't already: PCI-DSS already mandates that support for all versions of SSL is dropped, and "early TLS" is dropped - they've not defined "early TLS" but TLS 1.0 is known to be vulnerable to attacks already, and TLS 1.1 is structurally weak, so I bet within a year this will be clarified to mean "both TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 must not be enabled" by the webserver. By June 2016 you have to get rid of TLS 1.0 if you accept credit card payments.
Some quite recent browsers don't support TLS 1.2 by default (I think some fairly recent versions of Internet Explorer need TLS 1.2 switching on manually).
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Errr... a GByte of data? Are you missconfussed with the pushed Windows 10 update?
Firefox was less than 50MB last time I did a full install.
The real problem in this case may end being that the overbloated browsers drop support for older systems.
When you can't access most websites because your browser only supports SHA-1, you may find you have a lot of capacity left on your monthly limit...
If I understand the issue correctly, this isn't something that can be negotiated. The problem is the hash algorithm used by the CA to sign Facebook's public key, not hash used for the content itself (which would be negotiated). Under normal circumstances a site only has one CA-signed certificate which it presents to all clients. The problem is that new browsers won't accept certificates signed by the CA with a SHA-1 hash, while older browsers will reject certificates signed with SHA-2.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat