Certificate Authority provides free certificates

http://www.disog.org/2010/01/certificate-authority-provides-free.html

by stakent • 17 years ago

29 22 17 years ago

The only difference between what they're doing and what every other SSL issuer is doing already is 20 bucks. A cheap-o certificate from GoDaddy or your favorite reseller does no more than validate domain ownership by e-mail as this freebie does.

plaes• 17 years ago

Yup. Hardly anything new here (besides, spammers can get SSL certificate from "regular" certificate authorities).

So basically that's the same that's CAcert.org has been doing - providing people the free alternative to expensive ones.

fexl6• 17 years ago

SSL is a messed up protocol, relying on trust in central authorities. SSH did it right: it only ensures that the server you connect with today is the same one you connected with yesterday, and it does not aim to do anything more.

An SSL certificate "verified by King George" does not mean that you can trust the vendor with your money or your data. I have to decide to trust the vendor that much, and nobody else can do it for me. All I want the crypto to do is verify that I am now talking with the same vendor I talked with yesterday.

I don't mind using a certified signed by someone not crowned as a king, for example https://secure.loom.cc. Or I could use this one https://loom.cc/ "verified by Equifax" which means nothing special to me.

I don't care that someone else decreed that "this is the One True loom.cc site." All I care is that the site I initially decided to trust is the same site I'm connecting with now.

zokier• 17 years ago

You can just remove all CA certs from your browser and then it works somewhat like SSH.

mjgoins• 17 years ago

IMHO, OpenPGP did it right. And there is an effort to use OpenPGP to authenticate hosts and users on the web. It already works for SSH: http://web.monkeysphere.info

tptacek3• 17 years ago

This is more of an emotional argument than a pragmatic one. "Avoidance of central authority" isn't a meaningful engineering principle. If you look under the covers almost anywhere on the Internet, there are central authorities hiding: in the DNS, in routing and IP registries, and so on.

But that's not an interesting response to you. A more meaningful response goes:

   This is the first time you've connected to bankofamerica.com.
   The authenticity of this host can't be established.
   The RSA modulus provided is
      00:ce:fd:f1:ba:7b:84:6f:08:fb:fe:86:bc:57:dc:
      97:51:23:f0:7f:d7:4c:ea:49:5e:54:78:c5:d6:8e:
      68:8c:76:20:24:52:f6:d6:60:0a:c5:79:ec:03:7d:
      1f:4d:d2:e9:ca:ec:f5:72:93:57:87:7d:75:b6:e8:
      9d:b3:33:b7:8d:b7:9b:0f:4b:0e:4f:51:ba:fd:d7:
      88:63:44:53:bd:50:cc:c3:bf:1b:ca:98:d8:d2:35:
      a8:10:62:4a:05:a2:d8:54:1e:e1:40:b2:be:cf:69:
      80:ba:ed:63:ab:d1:74:32:48:5f:19:a1:82:86:d1:
      cd:89:16:be:d6:0a:f2:61:97
   Are you sure you want to give this key access to your
   bank account? (yes/no)

SSL (anchored keys) works better than SSH (key continuity) for the problems SSL needs to solve, because:

* The first connection made in a key-continuity system is essentially unsecured, which creates an unacceptable window for opportunistic attackers --- none of whom care which 5% of connections they snag, and

* There are vastly more SSL connections than SSH connections, meaning not only that browsers would have store many many many times as much security state, but that users would be constantly exposed to alerts when sites regenerated keys, and

* The anchor keys in your browser, while not particularly well reported, are at least feasible to audit by hand; on the other hand, hundreds or thousands of per-site keys would be impossible to inspect or verify, likely meaning that any program that runs on your machine could replace your bank's key.

The scheme you've proposed is not only impracticable, it's demonstrably less secure (anchored keys leave no simple window in which attackers can seize control of a relationship).

jrockway• 17 years ago

I tried to get a certificate for my own domain name, but I was not allowed to create an account "pending verification". So really, maybe this is not as easy as the article suggests.

durana• 17 years ago

I ran into the same problem when I first used StartSSL a few months ago. It seemed like there were some cases where automatic verification would work and other cases where verification was deferred to a human. I believe StartSSL is a small, possibly one man, operation, so you might have to wait a few hours for human verification. Once my account was verified, everything after that was pretty easy and quick.

sorbits2• 17 years ago

Only class 1 certificates are free.

This is a great service as it allows me to setup secure IMAP, SMTP, Jabber, etc. without having to pay a third party money for this extra security, and without having to bother my users with installing my self-signed root certificate (StartSSL’s certificate is known to OS X and browsers except IE and Opera).

I don’t see how free class 1 certificates help scammers, phishers, and similar.

Murkin• 17 years ago

Where did you see its not known by IE ?

That is a deal killer..

sorbits2• 17 years ago

It seems they are now supported by IE judging from this page http://www.startssl.com/?app=40 which show icons of all the major browsers incl. IE but excl. Opera, and this page http://www.startssl.com/?app=22 which has the following text redacted (overstrike): Startcom’s certificate isn’t trusted by the Microsoft Internet Explorer.

So I think that it is now supported by IE, question is, which version of IE and/or Windows. I can’t find any details about this on the StartSSL’s pages (there used to be a FAQ entry iirc with browsers supported which included version and OS).

cmelbye• 17 years ago

It is known to more recent versions of IE, IE8 if I remember correctly? I'm using StartSSL on my service because my users are iPhone developers and you need a Mac for that.

qjz• 17 years ago

Huh? Since when does a CA need your private key/passphrase? Any time I've gotten a commercial certificate, I've only had to provide a Certificate Signing Request (CSR). Ahh, it seems the author didn't follow all of the instructions on the page he referenced (http://www.h-online.com/security/features/SSL-for-free-step-...):

'After that, StartSSL kindly offers to generate a pair of keys for the certificate. However, since the private key for protecting one's own server should never be given away or generated by someone else, the "Skip" option should be chosen and the Certificate Signing Request generated earlier should be uploaded onto the server.'

This is a bit creepy. StartSSL is providing a "free" certificate using a process where they also generate the private key & passphrase (unless you're smart enough to realize what a terrible idea this is). That's like the hardware store keeping a copy of every key they cut.

Certificate Authority provides free certificates

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