Re:Let's Encrypt Has Issued a Billion Certificates
by ignoramous on Thursday February 27, 2020 @01:21PM
(#22436071)
Not that I expect Google to issue fake certs, but DigiNotar also doesn't command 80%+ browser marketshare to soften the blowback.
Re:Let's Encrypt Has Issued a Billion Certificates
by brainscdf on Thursday February 27, 2020 @01:27PM
(#22436131)
> Not that I expect Google to issue fake certs, but DigiNotar also doesn't command 80%+ browser marketshare to soften the blowback.
Not sure how that is relevant. DigiNotar was a trusted root CA in all major browsers. So if an attacker managed to get a fake certificate issued by DigiNotar, they could attack 100% of the users visiting the website for which the fake certificate was issued.
In fact, they did issue fake certificates by accident due to a security breach. As soon as the error was caught, their CA certificates were removed from all browsers. They went bankrupt! That's how serious this business of issuing certificates is.
Re:Let's Encrypt Has Issued a Billion Certificates
by thenewnewguy on Thursday February 27, 2020 @02:30PM
(#22436858)
It's relevant because Google isn't likely to remove _themselves_ from their browser, which is currently the most popular web browser on the planet.
For this reason alone, having a major browser dev as a CA is not a good idea, regardless of how much or little you trust google.
Re:Let's Encrypt Has Issued a Billion Certificates
by jacobparker on Thursday February 27, 2020 @07:07PM
(#22439354)
Google is already a CA.
How exactly would Google MITM half the SSL on the internet by virtue of issuing certificates via ACME?
The private key never leaves the subject's system (the system hosting a website for example). Google would never have access to the private key for which it would issue the public key certificate.
Further, if Google abuses its power by issuing a fake certificate for another website and uses that to MITM all traffic to that website, all browsers and systems would remove the offending CA certificates from their trust store immediately. Look what happened to DigiNotar.