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Mozilla Joins Google Shunning China's Root Certificate Authority

posted by on Wednesday April 08 2015, @04:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the about-as-far-as-I-can-throw-you dept.

mendax writes:

El Reg has published a story which discusses the steps Google and Mozilla are taking, in response to the apparent misuse of a China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) intermediate Cetificate Authority (CA) administered by MCS Holdings, who claim it was all just a big mistake.

Firefox-maker Mozilla has joined Google in refusing to recognize SSL certificates issued by the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC).

This should not be a surprise since:

This comes after a security biz in Egypt used a CNNIC-issued intermediate certificate to create unauthorized SSL certs that could be used to trick people into connecting to bogus, password-stealing Gmail.com or Google.com websites.

As a result:

[A]ll Mozilla products – including the Firefox web browser and the Thunderbird email client, among others – will be updated so that all CNNIC-based certificates issued on or after April 1, 2015 are considered untrusted.

Mozilla said it also plans to ask CNNIC for a comprehensive list of all of its current valid certificates. Any certificates issued before April 1 that are not included on this whitelist will also be subject to potential "further action."

Microsoft has also revoked the suspect CNNIC intermediate CA:

Microsoft is updating the Certificate Trust list (CTL) to remove the trust of the subordinate CA certificate. The trusted root Certificate Authority, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), has also revoked the certificate of the subordinate CA.

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by FatPhil on Wednesday April 08 2015, @09:59AM

    by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Wednesday April 08 2015, @09:59AM (#167777) Homepage
    Indeed, and here we have an actual example of /ad hominem/ - that the argument is false because of its source - rather than the "you insulted me, therefore you used /ad hominem/, and therefore you're wrong" bollocks that lots of idiots spout.

    Why should we trust Microsoft? We shouldn't, as they are (tainted by being in part) criminal liars.
    Why should we trust what Microsoft says? We shouldn't, as they are ( - " - ) criminal liars, we should verify it.
    Why should we listen to what Microsoft says? Because how else can we verify or disprove it?

    If AC has some issue with what MS have said in that announcement, perhaps he'd like to document them here. A cursory read of it looks truthful and useful. I expect no response from AC, as he seems a bit of an idiot (which is not an /ad hominem/, it's just an insult - do you see the difference?).
    --
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