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Is HTTPS a scam?
(lemm.ee)
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this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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No it's not.
And it's not really like the TSA on the airport. It's more like a "having a door on your plane" type of security.
This is the best analogy I've ever read in the subject, bravo.
What if the issuer of the security certificate started charging you $1000 a year?
Why wouldn't they?
Letsencrypt certs are free dude. Https literally costs you nothing.
They're free today. Maybe not tomorrow. But by then HTTP will have been "phased out" and asking the "security authority" for permission will have become common practice.
They're a non profit backed by a ton of major internet players, it's not going to happen. https://letsencrypt.org/about/
What you're talking about was already the situation before LE existed, we're not going back to that. There's other free providers now too.
Just out of curiosity, what other trusted certificate authorities are there that offer ssl certs for free and no strings attached other than letsencrypt?
Ok. That's a good argument. I didn't realize that the forces for good here were so strong in this.
But frankly I'd rather not depend on them either.
Well, self-sign your own certs and deal with the implications of not being a trusted root certificate authority
I'd switch to another certificate provider ...
Don't play the fool.
If "charging $1000 for security certificates" became common practice (much like HTTPS) then you would be stuck paying it.
(And maybe there would be a "standards of behavior" clause in the security certificate contract too. lol)
You are now dependent on a third party gatekeeper. He can bend you over literally any way at all. He just hasn't yet.
And that goes for the legal authority behind that authority too, of course.
That's a good theory sir/lady, and actually was the case until around 10 years ago.
Then Snowden happened, and we found out that the nsa is sucking all unencrypted traffic out of the net and into their databases.
Then letsencrypt happened and now you can get your certificates for free. Don't pay 1000$. Letsencrypt is free and you can automatically update certificates. If your hoster doesn't offer https for free, choose a different hoster.
there's still the very real possibility they're hoovering all the encrypted data, too. and storing the stuff to/from 'interesting' end points for later 'analysis'--that is, if they don't already have the current tech broken.
Sure, but one thing we learned is that encryption sure makes things more annoying for them
Yes it's free today. Maybe not tomorrow. And the fact remains that you need permission from a third party (basically a gov official) to have a website now. Doesn't that trouble you?
No, and its clear you don’t understand the fundamentals here and you are throwing around baseless stats.
It’s not even about the certificate itself but the trust of who generates the cert. Just about anyone can generate a https cert, therefore it will always be free.
Who’s going to trust a company selling certs for $1000? Now that money is involved, trust is lost and the cert becomes worthless.
Consider. We're all using HTTPS and depending on certs.
Suddenly a wild threat appears.
For our own safety, from now on, certs will only be issued by those who get special permission from the gov.
Google will be cooperating in this.
It's technically trivial after all, because we're all already using HTTPS anyway. It's just a matter of changing the lock on the gate.
Thank you for your cooperation in these troublesome times.
(And a year later. We're installing new security software. We need to charge you $1000/year now. This will have no effect upon our main clients...)
Nah, anyone can become a certificate authority.
The difference is that the current trusted certificate authorities are autonatically trusted by browsers and operating systems.
But you could run your own CA, issue certs for yourself and your friends, and get them to import your CA public key to their trusted CA store.
Then it would work just like getting a cert from letsencrypt. The only difference is that letsencrypt is already included the CA store of OSs and browsers, so people dont have to do all the manual stuff
Your entire premise requires sustained cooperation of the whole world to collude and agree on something.
@KingWizard is right, you don't understand the fundamentals of this. You're asking good questions, but people have been asking them decades ago and already found reasonably good answers. HTTPS works okay for what it does. Check out letsencrypt, watch some talks about it. Informing yourself about the matter will get you further than asking more random questions on lemmy.
And if everyone would suddenly charge $10.000 for food, a lot of people would starve to death! Does that make grocieries stores a scam?
Your scenario is just absurdly unrealistic. Https and TLS are just standards. No single entity controls them. If all the certificate provider would suddenly charge money, you'd have a bunch of new, free certificate provider the next day.
But if you needed permission to be a certificate provider then you'd be stuck.
Once you are dependent upon that official certificate, upon that issuer, you're stuck. At their mercy.
If your browser or your OS insist on only trusting $1000 certificate, blocking access to most of the internet, then change the browser or OS. There is no grand authority telling which root certificates can be trusted. Yes, Google or Apple could scam their users this way if they wish to, but it would not make much sense for them. People would use something else.
You have the timeline backwards. That's pretty much how it was untile letsencrypt hit the scene.
But the technology of https works even with a cert not from a trusted root issuer. You just have that annoying page to click through on web browsers.
Not THE issuer. AN issuer. All of your devices have a number of trusted top-level issuers (Root certification authorities). Windows has about 50 preloaded, and this list largely matches what you'll find on Android, Mac, etc. Everyone's been mentioning Let's Encrypt, which descends from ISRG Root X1. But you can (relatively) easily get certs from Thawte, Verisign, and many others.
And if none of those are to your liking, you can install your own. Seriously, there's nothing technical stopping you. Most corporate devices (Windows, Mac, Linux; Android or iOS; mobile, client, server) have the company's root certs installed. The challenge for public trust is exactly that- Trust. You must operate in a way that is generally trustworthy.
Let's Encrypt was actually pretty revolutionary. You aren't entirely off base with your concern. Prior to that, getting a cert that was trusted by most devices was non-trivial, and came with an expense. But that wasn't because of the desire for encryption. Rather, it was about verifying that you were who you said you were. These also served as proof of identity.
Some do. It depends on the type of certificate. Thankfully now we have LetsEncrypt so that there is a free alternative to the big CAs.
To answer your initial question - yes it is necessary. Without HTTPS or encryption in general, anybody who can intercept your connection can see everything you're doing.
A real world example of this is let's say you're connected to a WiFi network that has no password and are browsing a plain HTTP site. Open wifi networks are unencrypted, as is HTTP.
I can sit across the road in a vehicle, unseen, on a laptop and sniff the traffic to view what you're doing. If you log into your bank, I now have your credentials and can do what I like, and you don't even know.
This is why we need encryption. It is an (almost) guarantee that your traffic is only viewable to yourself and the other end of whatever you're connecting to and not anyone in the middle.
Edit: for Anyone downvoting OP remember this is nostupidquestions. Take the time to educate if you know better but don't downvote "stupid" questions lol.
Yes, letsencrypt etc. mitm etc. Thanks, I have heard that particular argument.
Here's another
Because prospective customers get shy when the browser says that your site is "insecure"
Because it makes for better google ranking.
Because everybody's doing it.
So there you go. Mob hype and googlian dictatorship.
That's why we https
Because it factually is insecure. It is not encrypted and trivial to inspect.
No, in this day and age it is permission to play. Firefox has a built in feature to only load HTTPS sites, which I have enabled. This has nothing to do with Google. Your issue is with expensive CAs, to which there is a free solution (Let's Encrypt). Not HTTPS itself.
Incorrect. It is a matter of safety and security and a trivial thing to implement. You are free to not use HTTPS if you want, just as people are free to not consume your service if you don't.
Calling it a "dictatorship" is hyperbole and demonstrates that you clearly have no idea what you're talking about and won't listen to people that do.
You seem to be stuffed and pacified with popular explanations that amount to marketing. And so confidently parroted. But that's the internet for you.
It's the fact of relying on the whim of a third party gatekeeper for permission to run my site that bothers me. It appalls me that you people take this laying down.