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Chrome To Force Domains Ending With Dev and Foo To HTTPS Via Preloaded HSTS (ttias.be)

Posted by msmash on from the their-road,-their-rules dept.

Developer Mattias Geniar writes (condensed and edited for clarity): One of the next versions of Chrome is going to force all domains ending with .dev and .foo to be redirected to HTTPs via a preloaded HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) header. This very interesting commit just landed in Chromium:
Preload HSTS for the .dev gTLD:

This adds the following line to Chromium's preload lists:
{ "name": "dev", "include_subdomains": true, "mode": "force-https" },
{ "name": "foo", "include_subdomains": true, "mode": "force-https" },
It forces any domain on the .dev gTLD to be HTTPs.

What should we [developers] do? With .dev being an official gTLD, we're most likely better of changing our preferred local development suffix from .dev to something else. There's an excellent proposal to add the .localhost domain as a new standard, which would be more appropriate here. It would mean we no longer have site.dev, but site.localhost. And everything at *.localhost would automatically translate to 127.0.0.1, without /etc/hosts or dnsmasq workarounds.

7 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe...? by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe use browser other than Chrome??

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    1. Re:Maybe...? by Z00L00K · · Score: 4, Interesting

      All the strive to force users to go https has gone over the top. It's better to be nice about it.

      Many sites don't need https since there's not much to protect in the communication when people just look at memes and pictures of cats.

      Keep the https available for cases where users want to get the extra security. Assuming that users are stupid makes the users stupid.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  2. Switch to .test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    .test is an IETF standard for this purpose. .dev never was. Google own .dev, and they own Chrome, so they are perfectly welcome to do this. We could argue as to whether a browser that enforces per-domain protocols is truly adhering to browser standards (and the larger ramifications if every browser coder started doing the same), but accept that you have zero right to use .dev as your personal fiefdom and move on to something that will remain easier for you to maintain.

  3. Please see RFC6761 by mysidia · · Score: 4, Informative

    .invalid and .localhost are already reserved for private usage.

  4. What should you do? by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How about: Don't use a gTLD for your local DNS?

    Also, why are you doing web development without HTTPS unless you're planning on never using it? It's not like certificates cost anything. There's also nothing stopping you loading your own CA cert and signing your own certificates too.
    Browsers behave differently based on the protocol. Building against one set of rules and deploying against another is just asking for problems.

  5. HTTPS everywhere is all well and good... by brantondaveperson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But it's a real pain for anything that you ship with a web interface, and expect to work unmodified for a long period of time.

    Sure, that's a niche use-case, I get that, but not everything that's accessed by a web browser is something easily updated, and why should it be? If I build some device that's intended to be put on my local network, and give it a web interface, - like, say, a home router - will I be required to implement HTTPS on the device, and have it ship with a cert? A cert that expires after a relatively short period of time?

    I happen to have an old computer lying around the house, and it can't run anything more modern than Chrome from about eight years ago. This browser is able to access anything on the web, other than newer HTTPS sites, because it doesn't understand their certificate. By building these mechanisms of trust, and then constantly changing them (for instance, change from Common Name to Subject Alternate Name - and whatever it is that old Chrome hates about modern certs), we are locking ourselves out of notions of backwards compatibility, and increasing the rate at which we have to throw away our devices, because we can't afford to release OS updates for old hardware, and can't afford to release browser updates for old OSs.

    I get that we're talking about security here, and trust, but I personally see a high cost. Plain HTTP is great. HTTPS is a moving target, and seems like it will remain so.

  6. NOPE by cfalcon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Modded +5, Informative, but both of its statements are inaccurate. .localhost is reserved for 127.0.0.1 and no other thing. .invalid is reserved for NO use, it should never resolve.

    https://tools.ietf.org/html/rf...

    Localhost:
    Name resolution APIs and libraries SHOULD recognize localhost names as special and SHOULD always return the IP loopback address for address queries and negative responses for all other query types. Name resolution APIs SHOULD NOT send queries for localhost names to their configured caching DNS server(s).

    Invalid:
    Name resolution APIs and libraries SHOULD recognize "invalid" names as special and SHOULD always return immediate negative responses. Name resolution APIs SHOULD NOT send queries for "invalid" names to their configured caching DNS server(s).

    Neither of these are meant for use on a local internet. .localhost is meant to resolve to loopback, and .invalid is meant to never resolve but instead give NXDOMAIN.

    Maybe there are domains reserved for private usage, but it ain't these two.