Fwd: [ PRIVACY Forum ] Surveillance via bogus SSL certificates

Tue Mar 30 06:28:36 PDT 2010

On 03/30/10 07:03, Sarad AV wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> thank you. there was a small typo in the link you posted. it is
> 
> http://web.monkeysphere.info/
> 
> some questions.
> 
> Monkey sphere says:
> Everyone who has used a web browser has been interrupted by the "Are you sure
> you want to connect?" warning message, which occurs when the browser finds the
> site's certificate unacceptable. But web browser vendors (e.g. Microsoft or
> Mozilla) should not be responsible for determining whom (or what) the user
> trusts to certify the authenticity of a website, or the identity of another
> user online. The user herself should have the final say, and designation of
> trust should be done on the basis of human interaction. The Monkeysphere
> project aims to make that possibility a reality.
> 
> 
> will try this out. in the meantime other questions related to browser
> certificates
> 
> 1. How do we know which CA's (root/intermediate) have certified a domain
> xyz.com?
> 
> 2. How do we know the CA trust chain. i.e. who all are the root CA's and who
> are the intermediate CA's and which root CA is associated with a given
> intermediate CA?
> 
> 3. Can we make the browser notify us if a domain was certified by an
> intermediate CA?
> 
> 4. Say domain xyz.com is certified by CA 'A' and CA 'B' whose
> (root/intermediate) certificates are available in the browser. if i find CA
> 'B' to be malicious how can i get domain xyz.com certified by CA 'A'?

I have proposed that we strip out ALL outside certificate authorities from an
open source browser, and distribute such... and to practice what I preach, I
just went into FF and nuked the bunch - and whee, I can connect, verify the cert
and login :). The USER - a la monkey sphere - has to decide if she trusts the
Certificate Authority - who the hell are they anyway? And to answer my own
rhetorical question - those that issue the highest TRUST certificates to
licensed scammers a.k.a. the banks. I do not trust a single one of the
recommendations of official CAs. If I am forced, like one has to in this world -
to visit a bank website, I can figure out how much I distrust them all by
myself. All I want to know is "am I visiting the same site again"... and a "self
signed" cert is all I need, "ssh style". And yes, I love the monkeysphere
approach which would add meaningful levels of trust to that choice. And no -
there is no difference in my trust level if the cert says "self signed" or
"fairysign super duper" perhaps the former is better! - at least fairysign
cannot go off and bless the MITM - especially of any sites I run!

The basic error of all these cryptographers is to confound security/encryption
with identity. It is a very costly error to make, especially for the people who
blindly use such technology, and one that history shall record as the thing that
facilitated pervasive surveillance and the thought police [warning you are about
to connect to a secure site!] and rampant electronic fraud - the fraud of
misrepresentation by sleight of hand that bank liabilities are
non-distinguishable from legal tender by the official scammers of this planet -
the second layer of circular fraud piled upon the primary circular fraud of
legal tender.

It is quite a spectacle really.

Cheers,

---Venkat.

> 
> 
> Thank you,
> Sarad.
> 
> 
> 
> --- On Thu, 3/25/10, Ted Smith <teddks at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> From: Ted Smith <teddks at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: Fwd: [ PRIVACY Forum ]  Surveillance via bogus SSL
> certificates
>> To: "Sarad AV" <jtrjtrjtr2001 at yahoo.com>, "R.A. Hettinga"
> <rah at shipwright.com>
>> Cc: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net
>> Date: Thursday, March 25, 2010, 10:05 PM
>> More promising (from my point of
>> view) is killing X.509 and replacing it with OpenPGP, which
>> is what www.mokeysphere.info is doing.
>>
>> "Sarad AV" <jtrjtrjtr2001 at yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Soghoian says they are releasing a Firefox add-on to
>> notify users when a
>>> sitebs certificate is issued from an authority in a
>> different country than
>>> the last certificate the userbs browser accepted from
>> the site.
>>>
>>>
>>> If you have any further information on it or any other
>> countermeasures
>>> implemented, please do keep us in loop. this attack is
>> upsetting.
>>>
>>> Sarad.
>>>
>>> --- On Thu, 3/25/10, R.A. Hettinga <rah at shipwright.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> From: R.A. Hettinga <rah at shipwright.com>
>>>> Subject: Fwd: [ PRIVACY Forum ]  Surveillance
>> via bogus SSL certificates
>>>> To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net
>>>> Date: Thursday, March 25, 2010, 2:29 AM
>>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>>>
>>>>> From: privacy at vortex.com
>>>>> Date: March 24, 2010 3:53:44 PM AST
>>>>> To: privacy-list at vortex.com
>>>>> Subject: [ PRIVACY Forum ] Surveillance via
>> bogus SSL
>>>> certificates
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Forwarded message from Dave Farber
>> <dave at farber.net>
>>>> -----
>>>>>
>>>>> Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:34:27 -0400
>>>>> From: Dave Farber <dave at farber.net>
>>>>> Subject: [IP] Surveillance via bogus SSL
>> certificates
>>>>> Reply-To: dave at farber.net
>>>>> To: ip <ip at v2.listbox.com>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>>>>
>>>>>> From: Matt Blaze <mab at crypto.com>
>>>>>> Date: March 24, 2010 3:09:19 PM EDT
>>>>>> To: Dave Farber <dave at farber.net>
>>>>>> Subject: Surveillance via bogus SSL
>> certificates
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Dave,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For IP if you'd like.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Over a decade ago, I observed that
>> commercial
>>>> certificate authorities
>>>>>> protect you from anyone from whom they
>> are
>>>> unwilling to take money.
>>>>>> That turns out to be wrong; they don't
>> even do
>>>> that.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Chris Soghoian and Sid Stamm published a
>> paper
>>>> today that describes a
>>>>>> simple "appliance"-type box, marketed to
>> law
>>>> enforcement and
>>>>>> intelligence agencies in the US and
>> elsewhere,
>>>> that uses bogus
>>>>>> certificates issued by *any* cooperative
>>>> certificate authority to act as
>>>>>> a "man-in-the-middle" for encrypted web
>> traffic.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Their paper is available at
> http://files.cloudprivacy.net/ssl-mitm.pdf
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What I found most interesting (and
>> surprising) is
>>>> that this sort of
>>>>>> surveillance is widespread enough to
>> support
>>>> fairly mature, turnkey
>>>>>> commercial products.B  B  It
>> carries some
>>>> significant disadvantages for
>>>>>> law enforcement -- most particularly it
>> can be
>>>> potentially can be
>>>>>> detected.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I briefly discuss the implications of
>> this kind of
>>>> surveillance at
>>>> http://www.crypto.com/blog/spycerts/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Also, Wired has a story here:
>>>> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/packet-forensics/
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -matt
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>> ----- End forwarded message -----
>>>>>
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>> --
>> Sent from my Android phone with K-9. Please excuse lack of
>> OpenPGP signature and brevity.