Horible public key tricks

tptacek

All serious attackers are man-in-the-middle attackers (usually by tricking victims into diverting their own traffic, not literally by inserting themselves into the network path). Passive-only attackers went extinct along with the backbone-connected Sun servers that were used to launch those attacks. I don't so much care about the rest of this analysis, but you can't call an unauthenticated TLS session "secure".

mplewis

>the whole system doesn't even work Yeah, I saw a fire hydrant leaking the other day. Time to tear out all the plumbing, the whole system doesn't even work!

arcfour

>Nobody checks your private keys You're implying that they should???

kaslai

> So, I've always been somewhat annoyed at SSL/TLS. It requires everyone to go through a complex "ACME" dance just to put up a public website. Worse, certificates expire every few months, so it's not a one and done thing: even with automation, maintaining a certificate requires care to ensure the ACME client always has access to DNS records or the web server. Not actually all that long ago, people faced down the prospect of $1000+/year E.V. Verisign certs that involved faxing legal documents, phone calls, and other probing. Many jumped for joy when LetsEncrypt was finally mature enough for the mainstream. Kids these days don't know how good they've got it...

lacoolj

I cant get past the title spelling

knotimpressed

The linked pdf at https://tom7.org/httpv/httpv.pdf is extremely long but a great read if you enjoyed the article.

sam1r

Tip: select the the ‘tty’ mode prior to digging in. I’ve never felt a more relaxed feeling (easy on the eyes) while reading any blog in comparison.

geekgod382

I don't understand the math. What does plaintext^e mod n actually do?

1vuio0pswjnm7

"... and the whole system doesn't even work because certificates are issued over plaintext connections, and trusted certificate aurthorities[sic] use very secure keys like "4"" And the CA certificate is "self-signed" Meanwhile under this "Web PKI" the www user is by default discouraged and/or blocked from using self-signed certificates she herself creates Someone else decides who she must trust. It's not optional For example, for a number of years someone else told her she must trust eMudhra