Bonum Certa Men Certa

Techrights Urges Readers to Ask the Linux Foundation's Let's Encrypt (Backed by Companies That Give the NSA Back Doors) Some Hard But Legitimate Questions

Logo of Let's Encrypt



Summary: It's not impossible that the bug in Let's Encrypt was introduced by a rogue insider, if not someone further up above; Let's Encrypt must address critical questions or be widely seen as a compromised, untrustworthy CA

JUST like the Linux Foundation, Let's Encrypt is using Microsoft GitHub for their site and for their code. So much for security, eh? It's owned by Microsoft, possibly the NSA's closest partner. But putting that aside, today's certificates avalanche led us to discovering that the Foundation's executive who came there from James Clapper's office has left the Foundation (she vanished from the management's page). It's likely just a coincidence, but bringing that up isn't crazy. We wrote about half a dozen articles already about how the Linux Foundation works for 'surveillance capitalism' and the 'security state'. It's a matter of public record and it's easily provable using basic open source intelligence (OSINT).



At work last night, I actually had to step in for clients and urgently change certificates (to avert downtime of critical services). The fiasco is starting to show up in more of the media (but not much of it so far).

We have some facts. For instance, it is clear that somebody changed the code and we don't know when exactly. This article explains that "Let’s Encrypt explained on Tuesday [less than a day early] it had to revoke the 3 million certificates because of a CAA bug that impacted the way its software checked domain ownership before issuing certificates."

Here's what they told the writer: "Josh Aas, executive director of Let’s Encrypt, said in a statement to Threatpost, “A bug was introduced in our code during a feature flag update. Under certain conditions, this bug caused us to skip a check that we are required to perform before issuing a certificate. We determined that the bug affected about 3 million, or about 2.6 percent, of our active certificates. Unfortunately, we need to revoke these certificates, which we will be doing within the compliance timeline set forth by the Baseline Requirements.”"

According to this, "Let's Encrypt will be revoking 3,048,289 currently-valid certificates" (notice how they're contradicting themselves with the numbers).

"As part of the rules for this feature," it adds, "authorities must check CAA records at most 8 hours before a certificate is issued."

Also: "With only 24 hours to renew their certificates, many users are scrambling to get them done and some are running into issues."

Yes, I should know. This caused much alarm where I work. It's a fiasco.

We urge readers to ask Let's Encrypt the following questions (maybe more, maybe less)



The E-mail address to reach them on: security@letsencrypt.org

Alternative/additional E-mail: press@letsencrypt.org

Please share their answers, if any, with us.

If they fail to even respond to these questions, that will not inspire confidence, will it?

Remember Gemalto?

Recent Techrights' Posts

Very High Attendance Level at Richard Stallman's Talk Shows People Can Relate to His Message
Smear campaigns have their limits
 
Even Microsoft (MSN) Covers Richard Stallman's Public Talk in Milan 2 Days Ago
He spoke in Spanish earlier this month (Alicante)
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Techo-authoritarianism With Slop Plagiarism and "No Online June" (Going Offline)
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: GitHub MCP Exploited and MathWorks Discovers Huge Windows TCO
Links for the day
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Celsius-Fahrenheit, Endless Scrolling/Infinite Scrolling, and Trapping LLM Slop Bots
Links for the day
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
Prison gate backdrop to baptism by Fr Sean O'Connell, St Paul's, Coburg
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
More Photos From This Week's Milan Talk by Richard Stallman
The posts are in Italian, not English
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 27, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Links 27/05/2025: Science Defunded, India Arrests an Academic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/05/2025: From Celsius to Fahrenheit and Deleting Social Control Media
Links for the day
Microsofters Have, in Effect, Attempted Extrajudicial Action Against Us
Courts and Judges (or Masters) don't exist to facilitate this kind of "bro" culture
UK High Court Masters Are Not Your Jesters, Microsoft
Judges aren't there for "funny" spectacles, they're there to act as arbiters in critical cases, not SLAPPs
Links 27/05/2025: Mass Layoffs at Volvo and More Evidence of 'AI' (Slop) Being a Passing Fad
Links for the day
The Code of Conduct (CoC) Gaslighting Phenomenon
There are still many people and projects foolish enough to outsource their labour to Microsoft via GitHub
They're Very Jealous of Richard Stallman and His Freedom (or Simple Lifestyle)
Jealousy is toxic because it can cause rational people to act irrationally and even severely harm themselves
Akira Urushibata on GNU coreutils
new message
Anouk Rozestraten (Deputy Director) Appears to Have Left the Free Software Foundation
Let's hope Rozestraten is still using and promoting Free software
There's Nothing Funny About Lawbreaking
There's plenty of room in society for humour, but "hacking" the state by breaking laws isn't cool or hip
More Mass Layoffs Coming Soon to Microsoft, Just a Question of When and How Many
Numbers from Washington were close to 5% and judging by prior rumours, it would be 5% + 5% (total 10%) at a later month
Links 27/05/2025: Bikes, Ideal Computers, and BYO
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 26, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 26, 2025
Richard Stallman's Milan Talk (Public Presentation) Was Packed, Video Available Soon
Looks like they even ran out of seats
Gemini Links 26/05/2025: Intangible Stuff and Slop Issues
Links for the day
The Openwashing Shills Initiative (OSI) - Part I: Complaints to IRS or USDOJ Needed
If enough people do it, this will be more effective, more so if people who are based in the US do it
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Lobbying and the OSI's Status at Stake
At the end we plan to summarise all the issues in one very long article
Breaking Into Other People's Devices Without Authorisation Isn't "Funny" or "Research"
“Chaos was the law of nature; order was the dream of man.”
The Issue Isn't the Internet, the Issue is How People Are Taught to Use or Misuse It
The Web is circling down the drain. The Internet is not.
A Healed Reputation of a Movement's Leader and His Robust Message
The more aggressively you push against resistors, the more credibility they will gain
Links 26/05/2025: Deletions from Microsoft's GitHub, Telegram Blocked in Vietnam
Links for the day
Linux Released Last Night and There's Already LLM Slop With Slop Images
BetaNoise does not seem to mind this anymore
Links 26/05/2025: Walmart Layoffs and DRM Dumpster Fire ('Old' Fire TV Devices Lose Netflix Access)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/05/2025: USB Camera Viewer and Fantasy Life
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 25, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 25, 2025