Bonum Certa Men Certa

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is Fine, Centralised Certificate Authorities (CAs) Are Not

Video download link | md5sum b147528fd1ea28881ed4578632fbd8b7 War on Decentralised Internet and Computing Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: There's a lot of misconception/misunderstandings about what the Certificate Authorities (CAs) are, what they're for, how they work, and why they don't actually tackle the biggest security and privacy problems, they're mostly about centralisation of control and outsourcing of "trust" from pertinent sites/services to monopolies, empires, and oligarchs

SOME days ago someone was "[s]houting out to @tuxmachines to check your server. SSL certificate-based error messages are flying..."



This was not unforeseen. A lot of people sadly believe what Web browsers tell them, not bothering to take into account the agenda promoted by such Web browsers. It's about control and centralisation, it's not about security and/or privacy. A "malicious Web site can easily get a TLS certificate from a CA and turn the padlock on your browser green and go ahead and load," DaemonFC reminds us. "And it's still a malicious Web site."

"Let's Encrypt even admits that they do nothing to protect you from a malicious Web site, and suggest reporting those to Google and Microsoft," DaemonFC adds.

"A lot has happened since then, notably Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in a lot of censorship inside Russia, by Russia, and against Russia."Those who say that getting a 'good' certificate is 'free' may be missing the point. It is like buying a 'secure' boot certificate from Microsoft on the 'cheap' (until the OEMs toss them out). We wrote about this in relation to Certificate Authorities before, with focus on the "big fish", Let's Encrypt [1, 2, 3], or LE.

The video above revisits this subject. A lot has happened since then, notably Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in a lot of censorship inside Russia, by Russia, and against Russia. Now that the centralised systems are in place, censorship is vastly stronger. Is this security???

A given Gemini address is accessible so long as there's a certificate in place, even a self-signed one (vouching for oneself). The same model ought to have been adopted for the Web. For online banking it would help if banks sent expected fingerprints, e.g. by post. Outsourcing to monopolies isn't the way to go.

"Outsourcing to monopolies isn't the way to go."Readers might correctly spot the resemblance or notice the similarity to UEFI 'secure' boot. First they start with recommendations, saying it is all about security and enhancing safety. And then intimidation, seeking compliance from people who disregard the recommendations. Finally, they resort to outright locking out (blocking) anything that is not submissive, e.g. after 90% or more have already surrendered. So this is a form of blackmail for lock-down, initially marketed as a well-meaning security scheme. They're insincere about motives. Nothing here is "free"...

Right now, after we've witnessed expansion in Web censorship, we believe stronger resistance will be needed by explaining to people what's happening. Remember that this is not about security; it's all about control and one day revoking certificates can be weaponised further and further, just like DNS-level censorship, denial of ClownFlare access, and so on. They typically start with "pirates", "terrorism", and "the children" before resorting to political angles. CAs can very easily and immediately be leveraged for outright censorship.

"Finally, they resort to outright locking out (blocking) anything that is not submissive, e.g. after 90% or more have already surrendered."In the video above I remind people that the Linux Foundation's LE has already revoked millions of cerificates before (without even properly explaining what had happened!) and it'll happen again sooner or later. Maybe at some point they'll just decide to revoke all LE certificates for Russian sites, citing some political "sanctions". Then what? Who's next?

As an associate noted yesterday, "those that control the signing authorities can issue revocations at any time they feel like it and for any reason they feel like..."

In the case of Debian, we recently saw how trademarks get leveraged to censor criticism and hide problems. They just confiscate critics' Web sites. Maybe we'll do a video about this soon, seeing that the debian.community site is now succeeded by debian.day and debian.news. It's a namespace battle in DNS.

DaemonFC concludes: "The only thing that HTTPS does do is help keep what you do to interact with the server private from outsiders, and that is important. But if you fall for a site claiming to be your bank because it has a green padlock, that doesn't help you avoid a scam. One of the reasons I used to promote HTTPS Everywhere to everyone was because I believed the user should have the option to try to force it on with as many sites as possible. But I never would have argued for a system where HTTP is basically deprecated without TLS and browsers try to say there's something wrong with accessing such a Web site if you don't mind your information between your browser and that site remaining private. It's a good "upgrade". It is. It stops things like the Man-In-The-Middle Attacks that Comcast was using in order to spam its customers and inject advertisements into Web pages. So that's why I started using it. I thought it was outrageous that wherever I went, here's Comcast injecting alerts about data usage or ads for their TV package into my Google searches. HTTPS breaking that is a happy side-effect of what it does."

"I was big on the idea of bringing CACert into the certificates package used by Mozilla, but they always found some bullshit reason not to. Like, they didn't even want to talk about it. The whole situation with certificates is a legacy of Netscape. All of the old "players" that are really valuable and "trusted" by just about everything started out that way because Netscape Corporation put them in the Netscape Navigator browser. Then Microsoft came along with their stolen Internet Explorer product (they stiffed Spyglass Mosaic and then didn't pay them) and lobbed all the same certificates in so that sites working in Netscape Navigator would also load in Internet Explorer. And then the tragedy just kept expanding from there. Opera had to throw all the same certificates in because they've never had more than 2% of the browser market. The user has really no control over how this works. It's always been 100% Big Business. From Netscape to Microsoft to Apple and Google."

"Remember when they had that Diginotar CA that was compromised? An entire CA! They had to revoke and remove an entire CA. What a mess that was. Everything in that "chain of trust" was broken and all the sites that used it had to get new certificates, and many Windows and Mac developers got caught with their pants down and had security alerts warning the users not to install the software that the OS was saying "THIS IS FINE!" about yesterday. That was hilarious, and sad. Sad because everyone watched what ensued and nothing was fixed. They revoked one CA and caused all sorts of Hell, but it could happen with any of them."

They still push this very same agenda for software, not only Web sites, various services (including IRC), and booting.

MinceR then said that "PKI as a whole is badly designed."

Recent Techrights' Posts

The European Patent Office Cannot Attract Proficient Patent Examiners Who Master Their Domain
They are enablers and facilitators of corruption
[Meme] 9AM Meeting at Brett Wilson LLP
Brett Wilson LLP in space
 
Debian Can Dump Blind Users Because I am Not Blind
the sort of mentality we're up against
Fascistic Policies Got 'Normalised' in 'Public Office'. Let's Not Let the Same Happen in 'Tech'.
Political discourse typically guides what's "normal" and what "good citizens" should believe/feel
Yes, Your Mastodon Instance Will Also Shut Down
Few people run a one-person instance in the Fediverse
The Demise of GAFAM Necessitates Greater and Broader Awareness
Morale at Microsoft is really bad
Free Software Foundation Reaches 75% of Funding Goal
Not bad for this "Fosschild"
Slopwatch: 7 New Examples of Fake 'Linux' Slop Pieces (Plagiarism With Misinformation)
Serial Sloppers need to be shunned
Links 19/07/2025: Kapo-berg Settles, Software Patents Challenged
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 18, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 18, 2025
Links 18/07/2025: Peace With PKK and Connie Francis Dies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/07/2025: Alhena 5.1.8 and Bornhack 2025
Links for the day
How to Top Up a "Limited Liability" With Even More Limitations (Dodging Accountability in the UK)
Some people call it a "shell game". Sometimes it's done for tax evasion purposes.
Free Software Foundation, Inc. (FSF) Inches Towards 75% of Fund-Raising Target
Will the cutoff date be extended again?
Gemini Space (or Geminispace) Grows, But Usage of Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Drops Further
Ideally, all Gemini capsules should use self-signed certificates
Links 18/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs in Activision, The New Stack (Sponsored by Microsoft) Complains About Openwashing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/07/2025: OCC25 Gnus for Reading Usenet and RSS Feeds, Small Web Updates
Links for the day
Listing as Staff People Who Left the Company More Than Six Years Earlier
There are apparently no laws against that
Brian Fagioli Shovels Up LLM Slop (Plagiarism) Onto Slashdot, Then Uses Slashdot for Affirmation or as Badge of Honour
Notice how some of his latest slop is presented ("as featured on Slashdot")
Social Control Media Productivity
Snapping photos of the bone
The Law Firm SLAPPing Us For the Microsofters Lost 72% of Its Tangible Assets in the Past Year, According to Its Own Reports
That might help explain why they're willing to tolerate serial stranglers from Microsoft as clients
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity.com Slopfarm and Slopfarms Propped Up by Google News
"As LLM slop is foisted onto the WWW in place of knowledge and real content, it now gets ingested and processed by other LLMs, creating a sort of ouroboros of crap."
Links 18/07/2025: Weather Events and Health Hazards
Links for the day
Microsoft's All-Time Low in Finland
Microsoft is in a freefall
Security: Shane Wegner & Debian statement of incompetence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 17, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 17, 2025
Gemini Links 17/07/2025: "Goodreads for Gemini" and Defence of "The Small Web"
Links for the day
Links 17/07/2025: Anger and Morale Issues at Microsoft, Wars and Conflicts Get Digital
Links for the day
CALEA / CALEA2 is the Real Problem, Not Chinese Operatives Exploiting CALEA / CALEA2 (as Any Other Nation Can)
CALEA / CALEA2 is more of a front door than a back door
99.99% Uptime in First Half of 2025
Since January there was only one noticeable outage
Nils Torvalds and Anna "Mikke" Torvalds (née Törnqvis) Hopefully Use GNU/Linux by Now
"Torvalds Family Uses Windows, Not Linus’ Linux"
Attack of the Slopfarms
FUD-amplifying bots with slop images, slop text (LLM slop)
When People Call a Best/Close Friend of Bill Gates a "Serial Rapist"
Good thing that the Linux Foundation keeps the "Linux" trademark ("Linux Mark") clean
Not My Problem, I Don't Care
Context/inspiration: Martin Niemöller
Honest Journalism About the European Patent Office Ceased to Exist After SLAPPs and Bribes to the Media
The EPO is basically a Mafia
Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia, Shutdown in Pakistan, What Next?
It seems possible that in 2025 alone Microsoft will have laid off over 50,000 workers
Life Became Simpler When I Stopped Driving and I Don't Miss Driving When I See "Modern" Cars
Gee, wonder why car sales have plummeted...
Why I Believe Brett Wilson LLP and Its Microsoft Clients Are All Toast
So far our legal strategy has worked perfectly
EPO Jobs Are Very Toxic and Bad for One's Health
Health first, not monopolies
Response to Ryo Suwito Regarding the Four Freedoms
the point of life isn't to make more money
Microsoft's Morale Circling Down the Drain
Or gutter, toilet etc.
What Matters More Than "Market Share"
The goal is freedom, not "market share"
Tech Used to be Fun. To Many of Us It's Still Fun.
You can just watch it from afar and make fun of it all
Links 17/07/2025: "Blog Identity Crisis" and Openwashing by Nvidia
Links for the day
Greffiers and the US Attorney of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft
The lawsuit can help expose extensive corruption in the American court system as well
Credit Suisse collapse obfuscated Parreaux, Thiébaud & Partners scandal
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The People Who Promoted systemd in Debian Also Promote Wayland
This is not politics
UK Media Under Threat: Cannot Report on Data Breach, Cannot Report on Microsoft Staff Strangling Women
The story of super injunction (in the British media this week, years late)
Victims of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, Wanted to Sue Him But Lacked the Funds (He Attacked Their Finances)
Having spoken to victims of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft
Links 17/07/2025: Science, Hardware, and Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/07/2025: Staying in the "Small Web" and Back on ICQ
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 16, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 16, 2025