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from the it's-the-end-of-the-web-as-we-know-it-and-i-feel-fine dept.
Phoronix reports the Mozilla Security Engineering team is planning to make their browser useless for browsing much of the World Wide Web, by deprecating insecure HTTP.
Richard Barnes of Mozilla writes:
In order to encourage web developers to move from HTTP to HTTPS, I would like to propose establishing a deprecation plan for HTTP without security. Broadly speaking, this plan would entail limiting new features to secure contexts, followed by gradually removing legacy features from insecure contexts. Having an overall program for HTTP deprecation makes a clear statement to the web community that the time for plaintext is over -- it tells the world that the new web uses HTTPS, so if you want to use new things, you need to provide security.
See also this document outlining the initial plans.
(Score: 5, Informative) by TheRaven on Wednesday April 15 2015, @09:57AM
Purchase from a known Certificate Authority (like Verisign)
Verisign hasn't been in the certificate business for a few years now and, for individual use, companies like StartSSL [startssl.com] will sign certs for free. I switched to using them instead of self-signed certs for personal stuff about a year ago and been very happy with their service (far better than I'd expect for free, though obviously part of the reason for the free service is to advertise their expensive service).
Pay for a replacement certificate every X years or so, and repeat step #2.
As above, no payment necessary.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Jaruzel on Wednesday April 15 2015, @02:22PM
Yeah, slip up on my part saying Verisign - I used to use them exclusively in a previous job so typed it on auto-pilot.
If you see my other post, I mention that I too also use StartSSL. However for laypeople their process is quite complex, and the free cert is restrictive and needs renewing every year.
-Jar
This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by termigator on Wednesday April 15 2015, @05:53PM
I think there is a risk of weakening trust in the web with mass adoption of https. I think many regular folk make the false assumption that if a connection is encrypted, it can be trusted. This false impression is partly due to browser visual cues when an https connection is established.
CA model has also promoted this impression by implying that parties receiving a certificate have been screened, inferring a level a trust that the party is not malicious.
Until deficiencies in the CA model can be addressed and a model exists to allow web users to determine if a site can be trusted, wholesale usage of https will likely makes things less secure as bad actors take advantage of the false sense of trust https infers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:30PM
there is a risk of weakening trust in the web with mass adoption of https
That's insightful - if hobby pages use https, then it de-values the "lock icon" on my bank's website. Quite true.
The flip side is that the whole Certificate Authority is broken by design anyway. Maybe wholesale adoption of https is what will drive us to fix the mess.
by implying that parties receiving a certificate have been screened, inferring a level a trust
I think I'd prefer the [misplaced] trust in the system to be weakened sooner rather than later. All that "lock icon" represents is that information is being transmitted to another party in encrypted form. It makes no real guarantee who that party happens to be.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @10:01PM
We gave on that a while ago. HTTPS is used for verifying that you really are connected to the domain in your browser's address bar and that no one else can read or modify your communications with that domain. Extended Validation Certificates [wikipedia.org] are for verifying that a specific organization has control over that domain.