8 ms·

This sounds like a decent idea until you realize that means one of two options: - A US Government controlled CA root preinstalled on computers. Privacy advocat

This sounds like a decent idea until you realize that means one of two options: - A US Government controlled CA root preinstalled on computers. Privacy advocates would be in arms. - Constant untrusted CA warnings when trying to access any government site.

jowea 3y ago
Brazil had trouble somewhat like that. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=438825 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=438825
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Abekkus 3y ago
Does our CA/browser infrastructure prevent the government from registering a trusted .gov CA instead of a trusted root CA?
- ComputerGuru 3y ago
  It currently does, unless they get a cert cross-signed from a CA that’s in the root CA list. Which is a problem with the root cA design.
- toast0 3y ago
  NameConstraints seem to be well supported now, although the farther away from browsers you go, the harder it is to know for sure. That said, I'm not aware of any active use. Some root programs constrain some of the roots within, but afaik, not by having an x.509 cert with name constraints.
nickname-derail 3y ago
Root CAs can be configured to only attest certain TLDs (in this case .gov) via X509v3 Name Constraint. This is how dn42 does it: https://dn42.dev/services/Certificate-Authority.md https://dn42.dev/services/Certificate-Authority.md
dweekly 3y ago
What about a "root" CA only capable of signing .gov certificates?
xg15 3y ago
What exactly are you (or they) afraid of? NSA/FBI/CIA/DHS/etc impersonating other sites using the government CA? Before Certificate Transparency, I'm pretty sure they already could do that relatively easily by forcing a private CA to make them a cert. (National Security Letters and all that fun) Even now, with CT, I think they'd be more inclined to use a private or at least an "unofficial" CA, instead of basically leaving "your's truly, The Government" in the CT log. If you already know you'll leave a trace, why would you want to make that trace extra obvious?
jabroni_salad 3y ago
The pentagon takes approach 2. Most people never need to access a .mil anyways, but if you need to work with their office (I had a dealership leasing cars to them needing to use a web portal) then you have to install their cert bundle.
- Caligatio 3y ago
  I am unfortunately aware. To make matters worse, the preferred install mechanism is a .exe that adds all of the opaquely named DOD CAs to your machine. Regardless, this puts you back at a US Government controlled CA being on your machine.
  - smitty1110 3y ago
    You might not be up to date, you are now able to run the executable without admin privileges to do a local user only installation.
somat 3y ago
Have you seen the state of the root ca bundle? As far as I can tell it has every national CA except the US. Do you really trust the turkish government with the ability to sign for any domain. Some days I consider tearing out the whole thing and rebuilding with the 3 CA's I actually care about. but then I usually give up as too much hassle.
- cesarb 3y ago
  > As far as I can tell it has every national CA except the US. Annoyingly, it doesn't have my country's national CA hierarchy (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=438825 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=438825). Why is it annoying? Because it means you have to add it manually, and manually added root certificates have more power than the root certificates that come with the browser! In particular, they can bypass HPKP (security.cert_pinning.enforcement_level defaults to 1).
- snowwrestler 3y ago
  > Do you really trust the turkish government with the ability to sign for any domain. No, but I don’t have to. To be included in the root CA list, they have to participate in cert transparency logging. So I can just pick a log to monitor, and check to make sure they haven’t issued a cert for one of my domains.
  - somat 3y ago
    So you don't trust them to not issue an unexpected cert but you do trust them to always log it? edit: I just read the spec. the cert needs to be logged to be considered valid by the browser. which has fun connotations where google is effectively monitoring everything you access. basically the mother of all analytics. well... I mean... that is.. if they were not already monitoring everything you do on the web. so it's ok I guess.

jowea 3y ago

Brazil had trouble somewhat like that. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=438825 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=438825

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Abekkus 3y ago

Does our CA/browser infrastructure prevent the government from registering a trusted .gov CA instead of a trusted root CA?

ComputerGuru 3y ago
It currently does, unless they get a cert cross-signed from a CA that’s in the root CA list. Which is a problem with the root cA design.
toast0 3y ago
NameConstraints seem to be well supported now, although the farther away from browsers you go, the harder it is to know for sure. That said, I'm not aware of any active use. Some root programs constrain some of the roots within, but afaik, not by having an x.509 cert with name constraints.

nickname-derail 3y ago

Root CAs can be configured to only attest certain TLDs (in this case .gov) via X509v3 Name Constraint. This is how dn42 does it: https://dn42.dev/services/Certificate-Authority.md https://dn42.dev/services/Certificate-Authority.md

dweekly 3y ago

What about a "root" CA only capable of signing .gov certificates?

xg15 3y ago

What exactly are you (or they) afraid of? NSA/FBI/CIA/DHS/etc impersonating other sites using the government CA? Before Certificate Transparency, I'm pretty sure they already could do that relatively easily by forcing a private CA to make them a cert. (National Security Letters and all that fun) Even now, with CT, I think they'd be more inclined to use a private or at least an "unofficial" CA, instead of basically leaving "your's truly, The Government" in the CT log. If you already know you'll leave a trace, why would you want to make that trace extra obvious?

jabroni_salad 3y ago

The pentagon takes approach 2. Most people never need to access a .mil anyways, but if you need to work with their office (I had a dealership leasing cars to them needing to use a web portal) then you have to install their cert bundle.

Caligatio 3y ago
I am unfortunately aware. To make matters worse, the preferred install mechanism is a .exe that adds all of the opaquely named DOD CAs to your machine. Regardless, this puts you back at a US Government controlled CA being on your machine.
- smitty1110 3y ago
  You might not be up to date, you are now able to run the executable without admin privileges to do a local user only installation.

somat 3y ago

Have you seen the state of the root ca bundle? As far as I can tell it has every national CA except the US. Do you really trust the turkish government with the ability to sign for any domain. Some days I consider tearing out the whole thing and rebuilding with the 3 CA's I actually care about. but then I usually give up as too much hassle.

cesarb 3y ago
> As far as I can tell it has every national CA except the US. Annoyingly, it doesn't have my country's national CA hierarchy (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=438825 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=438825). Why is it annoying? Because it means you have to add it manually, and manually added root certificates have more power than the root certificates that come with the browser! In particular, they can bypass HPKP (security.cert_pinning.enforcement_level defaults to 1).
snowwrestler 3y ago
> Do you really trust the turkish government with the ability to sign for any domain. No, but I don’t have to. To be included in the root CA list, they have to participate in cert transparency logging. So I can just pick a log to monitor, and check to make sure they haven’t issued a cert for one of my domains.
- somat 3y ago
  So you don't trust them to not issue an unexpected cert but you do trust them to always log it? edit: I just read the spec. the cert needs to be logged to be considered valid by the browser. which has fun connotations where google is effectively monitoring everything you access. basically the mother of all analytics. well... I mean... that is.. if they were not already monitoring everything you do on the web. so it's ok I guess.