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Could someone explain the networking behind transparent proxies and MiTM snooping using certificates to me? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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Hi everyone, I've been trying to understand how MiTM setups like a transparent proxy work.

Obviously, the use-case here is in a personal scope: I'd like to inspect the traffic of some of my machines. I am aware that Squid can be a transparent proxy, and some might use the Burp Suite to analyse network traffic.

Could someone explain the basic networking and the concept of certificates in this scenario? I feel like I don't understand how certificates are used well enough.

For example: I realise that if someone inserts a root certificate in the certificate store of an OS, the machine trusts said CA, thus allowing encrypted traffic from the machine to be decrypted. However, say the machine was trying to access Amazon; won't Amazon have its own certificate? I don't know how I'm confused about such a simple matter. Would really appreciate your help!

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[-] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Indeed, that is what I meant to say. Thanks for the link. I'm assuming that transparent proxies have some sort of certificate store in them, since they connect as the user to different websites?

this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
27 points (100.0% liked)

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