Google Will Give a Search Edge To Websites That Use Encryption 148
As TechCrunch reports, Google will begin using website encryption, or HTTPS, as a ranking signal – a move which should prompt website developers who have dragged their heels on increased security measures, or who debated whether their website was “important” enough to require encryption, to make a change. Initially, HTTPS will only be a lightweight signal, affecting fewer than 1% of global queries, says Google. ... Over time, however, encryption’s effect on search ranking [may] strengthen, as the company places more importance on website security. ... While HTTPS and site encryption have been a best practice in the security community for years, the revelation that the NSA has been tapping the cables, so to speak, to mine user information directly has prompted many technology companies to consider increasing their own security measures, too. Yahoo, for example, also announced in November its plans to encrypt its data center traffic.
Great step! (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a really great step from Google, I had never thought that it can be done in such a neat way. What's next? Can they also do it for IPv6?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It could create an incentive to switch to a different ISP that supports it (where possible), which could in turn create an incentive for ISPs themselves to switch to IPv6.
Re: (Score:2)
We are talking about websites here not end user connections. Unlike with "broadband" ISPs there is plenty of competition in hosting providers.
An incentive to website operators to tell their hosting providers "either you give me IPv6 or I go elsewhere" sounds find to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Down in the boondocks
People put me down 'cause that's the side of town I was born in
I love games, love to stream HD.
But I crap for an ISP!
Lord have mercy on a boy from down in the boondocks
Every night I will watch the light from the house upon the hill
They got 40megs a second in the whole damn place and it gives me such a thrill
But I don't dare knock on their door,
'cause I hacked their Master Card last year
So I'll just have to be content
To leach whenever I get near
Apol
Re: (Score:2)
But I've GOT crap for an ISP!
Re: (Score:2)
Its a incentive for websites to do both IPv4 and IPv6. Not IPv6 exclusively.
Wouldn't affect end users at all.
Re: (Score:1)
StartSSL still give out free certificates to individuals right?
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.startssl.com/?app=25#2 [startssl.com]
https://www.startssl.com/?app=25#90 [startssl.com]
Re: (Score:2)
What did you do about Heartbleed. Did you pony up the $25 to change your key? I understand that they won't let you give them a new CSR without revoking the old one, and they won't revoke it for free.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Great step! (Score:5, Informative)
They do BUT
1: their rules on who can get the free certs seem to be varied and arbitary. I've seen reports of an opensource developer being given a free cert initially but then come renewal time told that merely having a donation button makes their site count as "ecommerce" and therefore ineligable
2: they make the expiry artifically short (the CA industry as a whole does this but startSSLs free certs are epecially bad),
3: they refuse to renew certs until just before they expire and refuse to reissue certs without revoking the old one.
4: each free cert only covers a domain and one hostname under that domain (e.g. bar.com and foo.bar.com). This effectively means you end up needing one IP per hostname you want SSL on (until IE on XP becomes insignificant anyway).
It's nice that there is a free (as in beer) option for some people but it's also clearly got a number of artificial restrictions on it to push people towards their paid options.
Re: Great step! (Score:4, Informative)
2: they make the expiry artifically short (the CA industry as a whole does this but startSSLs free certs are epecially bad),
A validity time of one year is pretty standard for SSL certs (paid certs often charge per year). Could they issue them for 20 years? Sure, but a one year validity is not unusual. Class 2 certs are good for two years.
3: they refuse to renew certs until just before they expire and refuse to reissue certs without revoking the old one.
I get renewal notices two weeks prior to expiration. That's pretty reasonable. If I recall correctly, I can generate a new cert for my site any time in that two-week period, so I don't need to wait for the cert to expire before replacing it.
While I wish they allowed free reissuance of certs at any time, I don't really see why requiring revocation is a showstopper.
4: each free cert only covers a domain and one hostname under that domain (e.g. bar.com and foo.bar.com). This effectively means you end up needing one IP per hostname you want SSL on (until IE on XP becomes insignificant anyway).
That's also the case for pretty much any of the inexpensive paid certs too. You can always get a wildcard cert but most CAs charge at least $100/year for a single wildcard cert. StartSSL charges $60 for Class 2 validation, and you can issue unlimited certs (wildcard or not). Organizations can get Class 2 certified for $120 ($60 for identity verification, $60 for organization verification) and can issue unlimited certs. For a company needing more than one cert, StartSSL is still cheaper.
It's nice that there is a free (as in beer) option for some people but it's also clearly got a number of artificial restrictions on it to push people towards their paid options.
Considering their paid certs are often cheaper than comparable offerings from other CAs, it doesn't really seem unreasonable to me. Doubly so because they're run by competent people who respond promptly to inquiries, even from free users. I've been a StartSSL customer for years (and also used other CAs like GoDaddy, Comodo, Thawte, etc.) and the customer service from StartSSL has always been excellent.
If you don't want to get a StartSSL cert or they don't meet your needs, that's fine. NameCheap and others sell single-domain Comodo certs for $9/year. RapidSSL certs are a buck or two more per year. That costs less than a single beer at the local bar. Hardly a massive expense.
Re: (Score:2)
To clarify I fully understand why startSSL do this, they are a buisness and they need to make money and they are certainly the best value widely recognised CA I have found.
I just don't think using startSSLs limited free certs as a rebuttal to claims that SSL increases costs for website operators is reasonable. Either you pay to get the wildcard certs or you pay to get extra IPv4 addresses or some combination of the two.
Re: (Score:2)
To clarify I fully understand why startSSL do this, they are a buisness and they need to make money and they are certainly the best value widely recognised CA I have found.
I just don't think using startSSLs limited free certs as a rebuttal to claims that SSL increases costs for website operators is reasonable. Either you pay to get the wildcard certs or you pay to get extra IPv4 addresses or some combination of the two.
Why not just use SNI [wikipedia.org]? I have multiple SSL-enabled virtualhosts running on a single server, and other than Internet Explorer on Windows XP and Android 2.x (neither of which I care about, as the former is EOL while the latter is effectively EOL) every browser on desktop and mobile devices works properly. I spend more money every two weeks on caffeinated beverages than my entire annual budget for SSL certs, and I have more than most. My cert budget is dwarfed by hosting costs (which I pay regardless of SSL sup
Re: (Score:2)
While I wish they allowed free reissuance of certs at any time, I don't really see why requiring revocation is a showstopper.
It's not a showstopper, per se, but they do charge a revocation fee ($25, I think?), so that makes it decidedly less than free.
True, but how often does one need to revoke a certificate? Other than Heartbleed, I think I've only revoked one certificate in the last 10 years or so. Amortized over that timeframe, the costs are negligible. That said, I would like it if StartSSL would offer free revocations in the case of something like Heartbleed, where certs are compromised through no fault of the customer, but I understand the business reasons for not doing so (CRL/OCSP isn't free).
Of course, I've abandoned several certs where I delete
Re: (Score:2)
1: their rules on who can get the free certs seem to be varied and arbitary. I've seen reports of an opensource developer being given a free cert initially but then come renewal time told that merely having a donation button makes their site count as "ecommerce" and therefore ineligable
OTOH, at $60/yr for an unlimited C2, if you're running a project with public donations, you should be paying. Even if you're still not-for-profit, you're no longer an "individual". Surely that's a little different than my personal email server?
Re: Great step! (Score:5, Informative)
StartSSL still give out free certificates to individuals right?
Yes, as long as you don't change your certificate after the key is lost as a result of HeartBleed. [startssl.com] If you want your users to be secure, then you need to pony up $25. How that isn't a violation of the Mozilla policies is beyond me. I can give StartSSL clear proof that a private key has been disclosed, and they won't revoke it unless somebody pays them to do it.
Re: (Score:2)
And if it is important you should probably pay for a cert anyway, or at least pay the 25$ for a revocation.
Meh, the non-free certificates are hardly more secure. There are hundreds of trusted CAs out there all over the world, and any one of them can subvert SSL for any domain out there. The SSL Certificate racket is just that. We should be using DNSSEC and embedding certificates in our DNS records. Sure, that still lets your upstream DNS providers exploit you, but for the typical foo.com that is one or two entities that can mess you up, and not hundreds, and you get to pick most of them by picking a different
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Great step! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's already monetary discrimination, since well design sights with interesting products will show up higher in the rankings than the local mom&pop web site where they could only afford to hire a high schooler to do the design.
The whole point of ranking is not to make sure everybody is perfectly equal, but to help the customer find the most relevant results. If I'm searching for a bank then I most certainly want a bank with security to be ranked higher than one without. However, I can see the issue that it's only Google who gets to decide what's relevant. Perhaps there should be some user specified criteria, such as letting me decide to show only IPv6 capable sites.
Re: (Score:3)
However, I can see the issue that it's only Google who gets to decide what's relevant.
Google gets to decide what's relevant in the rankings on their site, but not what's relevant for other search engines. If they do a bad job of picking good ranking criteria, it gives other engines an opportunity to provide better service. This is a somewhat coarse mechanism for demanding more relevant criteria, I suppose, but you'd better believe that Google takes it very seriously. They have a lot of other signals that help them decide whether users are well-served by the top-ranked hits, and if something
Re: (Score:2)
I have noticed that google is becoming less and less useful as a search tool as any enquirey leads to pages upon pages of virtual companies selling things.
Re: (Score:2)
I have noticed that google is becoming less and less useful as a search tool as any enquirey leads to pages upon pages of virtual companies selling things.
That comes and goes. Google constantly fights it. Google makes changes which remove that crud, then the virtual companies figure out how to work around the changes. Rinse, repeat. The smaller search engines don't have as much trouble because there's not as much effort put into figuring out how to work around their protections.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's a really great step from Google, I had never thought that it can be done in such a neat way. What's next? Can they also do it for IPv6?
I have previously publically advocated for Google to do exactly this as a way to promote the adoption of IPv6 however I was wrong to go there.
The bottom line is Google a defacto monopoly is using force to effect change in ways mostly unrelated to the mission (Linkage between quality and SSL is both domain dependent and strenuous at best).
Just because I happen to think IPv6 adoption will benefit everyone or that wholesale spying on wires should yield as little fruit as possible does not mean the ends should
Re: (Score:2)
In terms of their mission, they do a lot of things to "promote a healthy internet". Suggesting that two equal websites and the one that uses SSL gets higher ranking would fall under "healthy".
So now Google establishes Internet standards (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not convinced that this is a good precedent. Sure, they're encouraging sites to use HTTPS today... but what about tomorrow?
Speculation: Websites that block competing search engines from indexing their content may rank higher in Google searches? Websites that process payments using Google rank higher in Google search?
I'm not saying that HTTPS is a bad thing... but once they open the door once to arbitrary ranking changes done on a whim, that door can be opened again.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As opposed to the currently non-arbitrary ranking algorithm? What the hell are you talking about.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't like it, use Bing!
Re:So now Google establishes Internet standards (Score:5, Funny)
They've already been using their ranking system to encourage HTTP and HTML. Think of all the poor BBSs and gopher servers they've been discriminating against!
Re: (Score:3)
I wish they would index real FTP servers, not just those with an HTTP interface.
FTP authentication (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I meant those FTP servers that allow anonymous login, of course.
Re: (Score:2)
The standard is your email address but I typically just use ftp@
Re: (Score:3)
Anonymous login accepts any password, just put a random string. As for the LIST command, if FileZilla can read it, so can Google, they're not morons. You just handle all the possible variations of all the popular FTP servers. Yes, you actually have to write some code, but last I heard Google has programmers on staff.
Re: (Score:2)
asdf@ghj.com, of course. Just like everyone else.
Re: (Score:2)
root@ like everyone else?
Re: (Score:2)
Speak for yourself! I do most of my human interaction over FIDO. It's quite a bit slower (I only receive replies after a few weeks to months), but the fidelity is better than this Slashdot fad.
Re: (Score:2)
I was just kidding ;) FIDO still works great.
Re:So now Google establishes Internet standards (Score:4, Interesting)
Google has been using dozens of quality metrics for years to adjust its rankings. This isn't a new concept.
It's not clear to me which HTTPS configurations it's favoring, though. Is Strict Transport Security a requirement? People with high-longevity system needs are going to need to upgrade to EL7 to make good HTTPS feasible, so there will be a transition period.
As far as standards - look, W3C, IETF, et. al. have completely failed to keep up. From 1993 to 1997 we went from HTTP 0.9 to to HTTP 1.1, which is where we are today. HTTP 2.0 will have been languishing for two decades by time there's a standard and any significant adoption. That's not Internet-time.
Google has made some mistakes with SPDY and QIC but at least they're actually trying to move the ball down the field instead of just arguing on the sidelines. It used to be that lots of players would do the same thing and fairly quickly a concensus would emerge. We have a serious breakage problem in the current community process. Google is doing it right - it's everybody else that's not.
Re:So now Google establishes Internet standards (Score:4, Insightful)
While your points about the snail's pace of web "standards" development are fair, it's also important not to go too far the other way. Not so long ago, another browser became dominant in market share through pushing new but not widely supported features its own way, and people started making web sites that were written specifically to work with that browser rather than any common standard.
That browser was Internet Explorer in the late 1990s, and the result was IE6.
Re: (Score:2)
AES256 with snake-oil certificates sounds good to me but I bet ROT13 looks pretty similar at first glance – and if you are trying to spy on everything then first glance is the only one you are going to get.
You're using hyperbole to make a point, I get that, but the pedant in me insists on responding to your literal statement: No, ROT-13 doesn't look a lot like AES256, even at a glance they look very different. ROT-13, or even more sophisticated fixed substitution ciphers, are trivial to recognize and break, in real time, with only the most cursory knowledge of the structure of the plaintext.
Re: (Score:3)
As far as standards - look, W3C, IETF, et. al. have completely failed to keep up. From 1993 to 1997 we went from HTTP 0.9 to to HTTP 1.1, which is where we are today.
Most HTTP 1.1 features are useless. If it disappeared tomorrow nobody would care or even be able to tell it has gone missing.
HTTP 2.0 will have been languishing for two decades by time there's a standard and any significant adoption. That's not Internet-time.
The pace of standards development is driven by commercial need rather than abstract notions of staleness, "the future", "progress"..etc.
The only reason for delay is nobody cares. The incremental benefit is so trivial as to not be worth the effort unless you happen to be Google. When people care shit gets done even if it means draft implementations making their way into production.
Google has made some mistakes with SPDY and QIC but at least they're actually trying to move the ball down the field instead of just arguing on the sidelines.
M
Re: (Score:2)
Speculation: Websites that block competing search engines from indexing their content may rank higher in Google searches? Websites that process payments using Google rank higher in Google search?
Either of these actions would likely be illegal under federal anti-trust laws.
Re:So now Google establishes Internet standards (Score:5, Insightful)
but once they open the door once to arbitrary ranking changes done on a whim, that door can be opened again.
Was that door ever closed? They're ranking algorithm has been arbitrary since the beginning and has changed very frequently over the years in an effort to reduce gaming the system and to generally improve results. If anything I'd say it's nice that they're at least telling people about this change vs. just quietly adjusting things and leaving site owners to wonder what happened to their page rank.
Re: (Score:2)
The EU would pound Google into component quarks if Google paired search weight to what sites used their services.
Bumping search weights on HTTPS is a good thing for everyone. It locks out Phorm-like ad sites, lessens the damage that bogus Wi-Fi access points can do, and ensures that an attack on DNS doesn't take a site completely out... although DNS + a bogus CA can do the job.
Re: (Score:2)
I want my search engine to return the most relevant results, not engage in activism.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. You didn't interpret the "my" as possessive did you? English is a very flexible language.
on advice of counsel.... (Score:3)
It's about time! (Score:5, Interesting)
Expensive advertising campaigns engender trust because it shows that the advertiser has the resources to carry out the campaign. It's why online ads are so commonly ignored - people want to do business with "reputable" companies and expensive advertising is a way of establishing repute.
Similarly, putting out the modicum of effort to perform basic security like SSL is a signal that the website is reputable. I mean, if you can't be bothered to buy a $50 SSL certificate and install it, are you *really* trustworthy?
SSL should be a basic signal of trustworthiness.
Android Browser 2.x and IE/XP lack SNI (Score:5, Informative)
I mean, if you can't be bothered to buy a $50 SSL certificate and install it, are you *really* trustworthy?
It's not only the cost of a certificate, which StartSSL provides without charge to individuals. It's also a dedicated IPv4 address if you want to reach people still using Android 2 or Windows XP. A lot of entry-level hosting packages use name-based virtual hosting, and doing this over name-based virtual hosting requires the TLS stack to support Server Name Indication (SNI). Android Browser didn't gain support for SNI until Honeycomb (3.x) on tablets and ICS (4.0) on phones, and Internet Explorer didn't gain support for SNI until Windows Vista.
Re: (Score:2)
Honestly, you always come up with the darndest problems.
Thank you. The tendency comes from my philosophy of quality assurance. It's better to fix the edge cases in a design early than to let them become defects in the shipping product.
Re: (Score:2)
Tepples is seriously hyper-focused on edge cases, because essentially he is one.
Other Trident-based browsers for Windows XP (Score:2)
Internet Explorer didn't gain support for SNI until Windows Vista.
You are confusing with Windows XP with "IE on Windows XP". SNI works fine as long as you use other browser on Windows XP.
Other Trident-based browsers for Windows XP have the same problem as Internet Explorer for Windows XP, as does Safari for Windows XP. Besides, how are users of Internet Explorer, other Trident-based browsers, or Safari going to see the notice that viewing a site on Windows XP requires a Gecko- or Blink-based browser? All they'll get is a certificate error.
Seriously, who cares about ancient Android or Windows XP + IE?
People who don't want to have to spend time (which is money) handling support calls from users of "ancient Android or Windows XP + IE", or people who are
Re:It's about time! (Score:4, Interesting)
Similarly, putting out the modicum of effort to perform basic security like SSL is a signal that the website is reputable. I mean, if you can't be bothered to buy a $50 SSL certificate and install it, are you *really* trustworthy?
LOL and here I thought all this time the Internet was supposed to reduce costs and barriers to competition... yet here we go "the higher the fewer".
When your making the big bucks off Google by operating industrial scale link farms $50/year is a small price to pay for success.
Someone please remind me again why we are even contemplating enriching the clusterfuck that is the CA industry which sees no problem with use of completely automated systems and non-existent documentation requirements prior to issuing certificates?
Re: (Score:2)
When you're making the big bucks off Google by operating industrial scale link farms $50/year is a small price to pay for success.
Is it really? Industrial-scale link farming requires thousands of sites. At $50 each, that's going to start chewing into your profit margins.
Re: (Score:2)
They're not $50/ea though. ssls.com sells Comodo PositiveSSL for $8.95/yr. If they set up as a reseller and do enough volume, the price drops to $6.15/yr.
If they aren't making enough to cover those costs (or even the $50), their link farms really aren't worth having.
Re: (Score:2)
Similarly, putting out the modicum of effort to perform basic security like SSL is a signal that the website is reputable. I mean, if you can't be bothered to buy a $50 SSL certificate and install it, are you *really* trustworthy?
If you are relying on an SSL certificate to determine the trustworthiness of a site, you are doing it wrong. SSL certificates are cheap, and provide no additional trust worthiness to the site (unless they are an ecommerce site, which is a small part of the web). I would prefer sites that accept a username and password to use SSL, but I am okay with them not having it too. I would be a little bit worried about my password leaking when I am a public wifi. So those sites get a random password and a throw away
Re: (Score:2)
Or if you can't be bothered to write compliant HTML. Oops, Google fails [w3.org].
Sites with accessibility issues such as content that can only be accessed with JavaScript enabled, should also be deprioritized.
Define commercial site (Score:2)
Thanks to Google and the NSA ! (Score:2, Interesting)
Thanks to Google for making the web a little bit more secure by promoting secure websites!
Thanks to the NSA for tapping the web so blindly and boldly than we should react!
If the NSA was not so bold and had tapped only these who were under suspicion of bad behavior, the status-quo would have been kept. Now the privacy of everyone is a little bit more secure and the NSA will have a little bit harder times managing MITM attacks on every netizens.
An EU Citizen who like its privacy.
Cat blog (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, for news and such it doesn't make that much sense. Still, HTTPS would at least prevent your ISP from monitoring your browsing activity.
Re:Cat blog (Score:5, Informative)
That's part of it - a valuable enough part in itself, IMO; at least one UK ISP, TalkTalk, has started duplicating HTTP requests made by their customers [fluidinfo.com]: so, if you request http://example.com/stuff [example.com] on one of their lines, 30 seconds later they'll go and request the same URL themselves for monitoring purposes. Obviously, enabling SSL prevents this kind of gratuitous stupidity - and the previous incarnation of such snooping, Phorm [wikipedia.org]. If enough websites enable SSL, ISPs will no longer have the ability to monitor customer behavior that closely, all they will see are SSL flows to and from IP addresses, and whatever DNS queries you make to their servers, if any. (Use encrypted connections to OpenDNS or similar, and your ISP will only ever see IP addresses and traffic volume - exactly as it should be IMO!)
Re: (Score:2)
It's an absolutely crazy implementation, I agree (particularly speaking as someone implementing something which analyzes HTTP downloads right now). It's not caching, but some sort content analysis; my guess, and it is only a guess, is that it's intended as a workaround to copyright. Genuine caching is
Re:Cat blog (Score:5, Informative)
It's actually a lot more than that. HTTPS isn't just about protecting passwords anymore, not post Snowden.
Let us recall one of the more interesting things we learned about SSL via the NSA leaks: the Five Eyes countries apparently have not broken SSL yet despite that the internet is still not capable of stopping them. The reason is a system they've built called QUANTUM [wired.com].
QUANTUM is a series of systems that work together. Imagine it like being a giant set of guard towers on the internet backbone. QUANTUM is called that because it's based on deep packet inspection and insertion. The first part is a massive set of DPI devices that trawl unencrypted internet traffic passing through intercept points. These DPI devices can be configured by NSA/GCHQ analysts to look for selectors - personal identifiers like email addresses, IP addresses, cookies and so on. QUANTUM does not run on every internet link and cannot see through encrypted traffic, but that doesn't matter: it's like a searchlight crawling the grounds of a prison at night. It doesn't matter that it can't light up everywhere simultaneously - once tasked it will keep searching until it finds you. Given enough time and good selectors, it will always find you, simply because the average internet user makes many different unencrypted connections to many different websites.
Once QUANTUM locates an un-SSLd traffic stream that matches your selectors, the next step begins, this is called QUANTUM INSERT. You see these DPI devices are not only capable of reading traffic but also injecting packets directly onto the backbone as well. This allows them to race legitimate answers from the real servers, and redirect the victim to an entirely different server (this is probably based on racing DNS lookups although I think the leaked docs were fuzzy on this aspect). These races are called "shots" and interestingly, they don't always succeed - sometimes the NSA is slower than the real server. But QUANTUM keeps trying and eventually you end up connected to this new FOXACID server, which then proceeds to act as an HTTP proxy for the real request and injects an exploit kit. That then pwns your system such that the NSA can now see all your encrypted traffic, along with turning on your microphone and so on.
An observant reader will notice something very important about the above description. The longer you can stay in the SSLd web, the longer it will take for QUANTUM to hack you. That means you directly benefit from a website being SSLd even if all it contains is cat pictures and you don't even log in. Once QUANTUM has figured out your IP address, any non-SSLd HTTP connection is a useful foothold.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is not just about protecting login credentials. The idea is that if your cat blog is ranked highly, many people will click on it. For sites like that, a DNS or other redirection hack allows me to impersonate your site with some drive by or otherwise downloadable malware.
TLS is about trusting the site your connecting with to actually be the site you think it is. So if your cat blog had a valid TLS certificate, then the impersonating site would need to obtain a fake certificate to avoid the client displa
OK fine but give us a free CA (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no technical problem switching every website/server I have to SSL but the actual problem is the price of all those SSL certs. Most of my sites are just hobby type sites that I run for my own enjoyment and to benefit others (quite a few "others" I should mention; some of my sites are very popular). However, I don't make any money off these, in fact it already costs me money to run them.
Now you want me to add SSL so that people can still find my relevant and useful information? Well, OK but how the hell am I suppose to pay for it? SSL server certs are expensive. The whole thing is a scam to make the few "official" CA's rich. How about some sort of official public service that can hand out server certs of every registered domain? Every domain should come with an unlimited supply of SSL certs or at least a wildcard cert and a renewal service, free of charge.
StartSSL or DANE (Score:3, Informative)
How about some sort of official public service that can hand out server certs of every registered domain?
You mean like StartSSL? Or what about DANE [wikipedia.org], which stores TLS certificates in DNSSEC?
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, none of those work in any popular browser out of the box.
StartSSL+SNI test case (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Quite the contrary: StartSSL is accepted by every major browser and SSL/TLS library, and has been for years.
Well-known sites, like EFF.org [eff.org], LibreOffice [libreoffice.org], and others use StartSSL-issued certs and don't have any issues. Sure, they're not Google-sized sites, but they're fairly major.
Re: (Score:3)
You mean like StartSSL?
Hardly an official service, just a commerical CA that hands out freebies to some but not all sites that ask for them and puts technical restritions on those freebies which push people to either buy the commercial products or spend more on hosting (do I pay for n extra n IPv4 addresses or do I pay for a wildcard cert).
Or what about DANE [wikipedia.org], which stores TLS certificates in DNSSEC?
Sadly not implemented anywhere near widely enough to be useful.
Re: (Score:2)
SSL DNS certs are not expensive. You can get them for free (as pointed out) or for perhaps $20 per year. Your hosting costs are almost certainly higher than that.
Re:OK fine but give us a free CA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
So far all Google has said is that they will boost sites which use HTTPS - as far as I can tell, they haven't said anything about requiring the use of a trusted CA.
Self-signed certs are free, and just as (if not more) effective than the paid ones if your goal is to prevent eavesdropping and not to verify the identity of an unknown server. (Known servers can be reasonably expected to use the same certificate as last time, or at least the same CA).
Given that the centralised CA model seems to have largely fail
Re: (Score:2)
The entire point of a CA is trust. Using a non-trusted CA would actually be a step backwards. Even worse would be convincing people that manually installing a cert for a random website is a good idea.
Besides, I do believe that every single major browser now includes dire warnings if you go to a site with a cert from a non-trusted source.
Certs are cheap. A quick Googling reveals a number of options [about.com] for under $50/year
Re: (Score:2)
The entire point of a CA is trust.
Agreed. But SSL is about encryption - authentication is merely an optional extra (if it weren't, self-signed certs wouldn't even be an option).
No intelligent person trusts the majority of websites, but they may still have valid reasons for not wanting their browsing habits eavesdropped upon.
Using a non-trusted CA would actually be a step backwards.
That depends on your priorities - on whether authentication or privacy is more important to you. Quite frankly, I find it hard to understand how encryption without authentication is worse than no authentication at all.
Even worse would be convincing people that manually installing a cert for a random website is a good idea.
Besides, I do believe that every single major browser now includes dire warnings if you go to a site with a cert from a non-trusted source.
Fr
Ironic (Score:2)
It's ironic that I'm hearing about this story on Slashdot, a site that has so far refused any sort of security. Good luck on your page ranks Slashdot.
HTTP-only ad networks (Score:4, Informative)
Unfair? (Score:2)
Isn't it unfair to rank content based on encryption rather than relevance? What do you say?
I myself would promote HTTPS sites with a golden lock symbol and a text "This site transmits your data confidentially".
Why? It's not always necessary (Score:2)
If it 's just an info site or something and you don't submit any confidential information, why do you need https? If I own a pizza shop, my website is all get requests, and I'm not worried about third parties seeing what's on my menu, why should I have to buy an SSL certificate? This seems like overkill to me.
Re: (Score:2)
hear hear! Sure, encryption is great and has its uses... But also comes at the cost of processing, configuration, maintenance, and low cost 3rd party providers. GoDaddy is about a to get a shitload of extra customers. When the products in the market are comprable, the well known low cost one is frequently the winner. Thanks Google.
They can start on youtube (Score:2)
http://www.arthur-schiwon.de/w... [arthur-schiwon.de]
Google forces weakest shittiest broken RC4 crypto and calls it secure.
What about hybrid sites? (Score:2)
My site uses regular http for the "brochure" like main page and info pages (e.g. FAQs, how-tos), and uses https for the login pages and software-as-a-service web-app pages.
Is there something wrong, conceptually, with doing it that way?
Is that hybrid approach going to lower my ranking?
Not sure why one would go to https (and more intensive server-side processing) on the brochure and FAQ type pages.
Re: (Score:2)
Really, it's not more intensive to use https. There are lots of people who have analyzed the difference.
A few more packets are sent. It's really trivial. While it is measurable, it can be recovered by removing one little picture, and/or compressing one of those pictures.
A trivial amount of CPU time is taken. Most of the measurements saying it was significant was when CPUs were single core 200Mhz or less, and memory was measured in MB rather than GB.
I've been offering or forcing users to SSL, depending
Client certificates (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're thinking of client certificates. You're able to remove them just like you can remove cookies, though getting a client certificate requires agreeing and clicking through a dialog, so they're strictly worse than cookies for tracking people who don't want to be tracked.
Re: (Score:2)
Too bad you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And is the one and only time I've ever needed to use a client certificate in the browser.
Server Name Indication (Score:3)
SSL requires a dedicated IP
Only if your clients include Android 2.x or Internet Explorer on Windows XP. Every other browser that matters supports Server Name Indication (SNI) [wikipedia.org], which allows name-based virtual hosting to work through TLS. As of today, if you can see my site [pineight.com] without certificate errors, your browser supports SNI.
and an extra charge
StartSSL issues certificates to individuals without charge.
Is there really a privacy concern if my visit to a weather site, a dictionary, or other factual content site is not encrypted?
Yes. Someone could copy and replay the session ID linked to your user account on the site and gain your privileges.
Then there's the bandwidth issue. Sites that go SSlL will use more bandwidth
What in TLS introduces this substantia
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you for these error reports. The "insecure content" warnings refer to mixed content, which is a separate problem from the "dedicated IPv4 address" and "lack of HTTPS CA with a without charge tier" problems to which I was referring in #47623799. I plan to address the HTTPS issue this weekend, as AdSense recently* introduced HTTPS support. What would you recommend for a graphic syndicated from The Oatmeal, which doesn't support HTTPS at all?
* September of last year is "recent" compared to the ten yea
License to rehost (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
None of the leaked documents from Snowden appear to mention compromised CA's, or at least no kind of compromise at scale. This is most likely because (1) CA's are not the weakest link, the browser security is and (2) they need to find their targets traffic streams before they can do the MITM attack, which would mean doing MITM on all SSL connections which would be detected almost immediately. A compromised CA would be useful only if they were unable to exploit the t
Re: (Score:2)
Who says that page with more incoming links is relevant? It all depends on the context... People searching to buy should definitely only be guided to HTTPS protected site, right?
Fact is that HTTPS implies that the author is actively maintaining the site. With at least some effort.
Also odds are that a malicious site is more likely not to have SSL, it cost money per domain and the scam sites are usually deploy