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Submitted via IRC for boru
Dear Jeff, Tim, and colleagues, In 2013, EFF was disappointed to learn that the W3C had taken on the project of standardizing "Encrypted Media Extensions," an API whose sole function was to provide a first-class role for DRM within the Web browser ecosystem. By doing so, the organization offered the use of its patent pool, its staff support, and its moral authority to the idea that browsers can and should be designed to cede control over key aspects from users to remote parties.
[...] The W3C is a body that ostensibly operates on consensus. Nevertheless, as the coalition in support of a DRM compromise grew and grew — and the large corporate members continued to reject any meaningful compromise — the W3C leadership persisted in treating EME as topic that could be decided by one side of the debate. In essence, a core of EME proponents was able to impose its will on the Consortium, over the wishes of a sizeable group of objectors — and every person who uses the web. The Director decided to personally override every single objection raised by the members, articulating several benefits that EME offered over the DRM that HTML5 had made impossible.
[...] We believe they will regret that choice. Today, the W3C bequeaths an legally unauditable attack-surface to browsers used by billions of people. They give media companies the power to sue or intimidate away those who might re-purpose video for people with disabilities. They side against the archivists who are scrambling to preserve the public record of our era. The W3C process has been abused by companies that made their fortunes by upsetting the established order, and now, thanks to EME, they'll be able to ensure no one ever subjects them to the same innovative pressures.
[...] Effective today, EFF is resigning from the W3C.
Thank you,
Cory Doctorow
Advisory Committee Representative to the W3C for the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership
(Score: 3, Touché) by TheRaven on Tuesday September 19 2017, @09:09AM (1 child)
You know Verisign hasn't run a CA for about five years, right?
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:11PM
Verisign doesn't run a CA, but it does run things that CAs check before issuing a certificate. Namely, it runs two root name servers and the authoritative registry for several top-level domains. This means it earns a cut with or without DANE.
In order to get a TLS certificate trusted by browsers, you need to buy a domain and keep it renewed. This is because the CA/Browser Forum's Baseline Requirements specify that hostnames in the subjectAltName field refer to a fully-qualified domain name in the public name servers, not some reserved or made-up TLD such as .local (mDNS), .internal, or .test. DANE wouldn't help either, as even if browsers trusted the DNSSEC root zone signing key, they wouldn't trust the zone signing key associated with a made-up TLD. So anyone who wants to run HTTPS over a home LAN and have it trusted by non-technical visiting friends and family needs to first buy a domain.