[HN Gopher] Joint statement of scientists and NGOs on the EU's p...
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Joint statement of scientists and NGOs on the EU's proposed eIDAS
reform
Author : sjm217
Score : 200 points
Date : 2023-11-03 11:08 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (eidas-open-letter.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (eidas-open-letter.org)
| dwheeler wrote:
| "In summary, we strongly warn against the currently proposed
| trilogue agreement, as it fails to properly respect the right to
| privacy of citizens and secure online communications; without
| establishing proper safeguards as outlined above, it instead
| substantially increases the potential for harm."
|
| The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) has co-signed the
| Industry Joint Statement on Article 45 in the EU's eIDAS
| Regulation, indicating that "Those provisions are likely to
| weaken the security of the Internet as a whole":
| https://openssf.org/blog/2023/11/02/openssf-co-signs-industr...
| EGreg wrote:
| Good morning. It has actually been happening all around the
| world, not just in the EU. Given how governments encroached on
| crypto and ad tech and social tech and in the last 10 years,
| the writing is on the wall for end-to-end encryption next. They
| have to know ALL your communications:
|
| I wrote a summary of the countries in the world that have
| already undermined it, banned it or on the way to banning it:
|
| https://community.qbix.com/t/the-coming-war-on-end-to-end-en...
|
| To be clear: EU here is backdooring https encryption. While
| also moving to ban end-to-end encryption (Spain leading the
| way).
| red_admiral wrote:
| The pushback against ad tech - or more precisely tracking
| tech - is hardly the same thing. One of the EU's moves will
| greatly improve privacy, another one will harm it.
|
| A world is possible where we have end-to-end encryption AND a
| ban on profiling people online without their consent.
| EGreg wrote:
| Sure, and a world is possible when we have other types of
| tech, too. For example we can have zero-knowledge proofs to
| access online sites and prove we're over 18. But the UK
| government has already passed a law requiring all websites
| to KYC their members with a passport. And Utah recently
| passed a law also protecting children on social sites and I
| asked their politicians directly how they will enforce it
| -- a likely candidate will be requiring ID from everyone.
|
| But the governments when all is said and done don't care
| about your privacy.
|
| https://www.biometricupdate.com/202309/uk-passes-online-
| safe...
| arp242 wrote:
| Dupe from yesterday:
|
| _Last Chance to fix eIDAS: Secret EU law threatens Internet
| security_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38109494 - Nov
| 2023 (280 comments)
| vaylian wrote:
| That's a related but different page on the same topic
| arp242 wrote:
| It has the letter literally in the first sentence. Do we need
| to have a story about ever possible page on this? Of course
| not.
| sjm217 wrote:
| Some press coverage from Computer Weekly
| https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366557952/EU-eIDAS-refor...
| and The Record https://therecord.media/eu-urged-to-drop-law-
| website-authent...
| gbil wrote:
| Good timing I think to remind you of the upcoming Firefox changes
| as discussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38009663
|
| EDIT: for context
| galadran wrote:
| As I commented there, you've misunderstood this change.
|
| There's a difference between certificates distributed with the
| OS and certificates added to the OS by a user. Right now
| Firefox ignores both.
|
| This change ONLY picks up the certificates added to the OS by a
| user. Firefox will continue to ignore the certificates included
| with the OS store by default.
| gbil wrote:
| Literally in the bugzilla entry is stated either by user or
| administrator so either you misunderstood or you need to
| raise this directly to the bug for correction
|
| EDIT: for clarity, something I should have done from the
| beginning, I checked the affected code, they clearly remove
| warnings around security.enterprise_roots.enabled preference
| and enable it by default. This is the preference that was
| added back in the day to control if the browser will allow
| root certificates added to the OS no matter the source (user
| or system context) and now they change it to true by default.
| I think this provides more clarity but feel free to search
| the affected code for references that indicate that only part
| of the root certificate store is trusted
| xoa wrote:
| Late so don't if you will see this, but from the very
| beginning, the security.enterprise_roots.enabled preference
| always stated it applied to certificates added, not those
| included by default, eg [0]. System vs User context is
| still different from baked-in vs added. On macOS for
| example the System keychain contains certificates added
| that are then accessible by all users and can only be added
| by an Administrator, and the separate System Roots keychain
| holds the root certificates (151 on the Mac I'm sitting in
| front of) that Apple ships with the OS. Firefox reading
| from both the "login" and "System" keychains doesn't mean
| reading from "System Roots". The suggested release notes
| for the bug report you linked reinforces this [1]
| (capitalization emphasis added):
|
| > _[Suggested wording]: By default, Firefox will now use
| TLS trust anchors (e.g., certificates)_ ADDED _to the
| operating system by the user or an administrator. This
| works on Windows, macOS, and Android, and it can be turned
| off in the "Privacy & Security" section of Firefox
| settings, under "Certificates"._
|
| If you think all of these descriptions have been wrong all
| along from the code, that'd definitely be worth bringing up
| on Bugzilla. Personally I'm happy to have it enabled by
| default vs always needing to remember to do so if it's
| working as described. I think support for one's own CAs
| should be encouraged even the overall UX around running
| your own CA is mediocre right now.
|
| ----
|
| 0: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-disable-
| enterprise-... :
|
| > _" Mozilla has added an Enterprise Roots preference to
| Firefox as a solution to the problem. This preference can
| be used to import any root certificate authorities (CAs)
| that have been added to the operating system, to resolve
| your TLS connection error. You can determine if a website
| is relying on an imported root certificate by clicking the
| Site Information icon in the address bar."_
|
| 1: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1848815
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Thank god they're fixing this. Can't wait for Java to also pick
| up third party certificates. Every time I install my personal
| CA certificate I need to go through every application and do
| the special certificate dance (in the case of Electron,
| modifying the launch arguments) because every application is
| opinionated about what certificates it should trust for some
| stupid reason.
|
| Every OS has an API for this, why should I need to go into the
| special super secret debug settings to tell an application
| "trust the system you're running on and use the damn API
| already".
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Wow. Does the EU intend on basically killing their economies?
| Online commerce is a huge deal and would be heavily impacted if
| people didn't trust their connections.
| mqus wrote:
| Well, for now most people _do_ trust the states and don 't know
| the implications of this. The EU could have just as well
| modified e-commerce and other pages before everything was
| encrypted.
|
| I also don't know how certificate pinning is impacted by this
| (which would mean that simply creating another cert from a EU
| root cert would at the very least be noticable)
| turminal wrote:
| People will trust their connections regardless of this.
| parski wrote:
| I don't think people know what connections are, let alone hold
| a position on wether to trust them or not.
| severino wrote:
| Why would people worry? We already have mobile phones,
| televisions, cars, etc., continuously monitoring and sending
| private information about ourselves and our relatives to
| external parties that we may don't even know about. This -if
| comes to be true- would just mean that more parties could have
| access to our data. But who cares once we are already giving it
| for free?
| EGreg wrote:
| We aren't giving away all the https data for free. Not even
| close.
|
| Next they will ban other certs other than their own. Like
| Dubai did or Monaco.
|
| https://community.qbix.com/t/the-coming-war-on-end-to-end-
| en...
| TheFuzzball wrote:
| > The proposed eIDAS revision gives Member States the possibility
| of inserting root certificates at will [..]
|
| That should've been a clear problem when architecting this system
| for anyone that knows how PKI works. Control and transparency
| around CAs ( _especially roots_ ) is extremely important for web
| security.
|
| Did they not consider issuing citizens with WebAuthn
| certificates, or working with browser vendors to support using
| client certificates (since they'd only need to be trusted by the
| server, not the client)?
|
| I am confused.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Knowing the EU is behind this, I wouldn't be surprised if the
| people making decisions about this are even aware of any
| technology beyond Windows XP.
|
| The funny thing is that several European governments have
| actually operated certificate authorities of their own, and
| they worked just fine.
|
| It's so stupid, because the rest of the eIDAS is a pretty good
| idea.
|
| From what I can tell, this stupid addendum is the result of the
| certificate authority industry, which were mad that nobody
| trusts EV certificates anymore (because they never added the
| security they promised in the first place).
| EGreg wrote:
| WebAuthn uses private keys in the secure enclave. It won't be
| affected.
|
| To be clear: EU here is backdooring https encryption which
| protects most communication, not signing. While also moving to
| ban end-to-end encryption (Spain leading the way).
| tansan wrote:
| Does this mean they would essentially be able to MITM attack all
| traffic?
| adolph wrote:
| At a high level yes. Here is some information about
| Kazakhstan's effort:
|
| https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/189647/what-hap...
| radicalbyte wrote:
| I'm no fan of the existing system of CA - in 2023 we should have
| certificate pinning for sites with mechanism for checking which
| certificate hashes are valid for which site (via a distributed
| ledger or via browser vendors etc).
|
| However this amendment is disgusting.
|
| I was one of the many experts reviewing previous drafts; the
| timing and content of these changes are absolutely an attempt by
| security services to break security on the web.
| zajio1am wrote:
| We already have such system: DANE + DNSSEC. Unfortunately
| browsers vendors do not implement it.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Interesting - I know DNSSEC (great solution) but haven't seen
| DANE. From a quick glance it looks like an obvious solution
| which should be implemented by the browser vendors and top
| sites.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| DNSSEC is a great concept with a rather convoluted design
| that's based on limitations of computers in the 90s. It's
| obviously better to have DNSSEC than not to, but I wouldn't
| call it a "great solution".
|
| Case in point: the DNS client never actually validates the
| DNSSEC signatures, the DNS server the client uses is
| supposed to do that, and then simply sets a flag that says
| "I validated this". Perfect for recursive DNS resolvers
| running on localhost, but terrible for security when
| applied as designed.
|
| Another example: Firefox currently has encrypted client
| hello enables to encrypt the SNI information and help
| combat traffic analysis, but only if you enable DoH to
| ensure that the necessary DNS records are correct. Once
| again, Mozilla didn't trust DNSSEC to work right and opted
| to trust DoH servers on their word.
|
| In truth, DNSSEC isn't widely used, at least not
| internationally. Some TLDs have high DNSSEC usages, often
| because their registrar advocates for securing DNS, but
| with companies like Amazon failing to produce DNSSEC
| software that doesn't cause massive outages and TLDs like
| .nz going down for a day because of bad policies and
| management, many people don't bother.
|
| It's a shame, really, because DANE would've fixed so many
| problems. I attribute its failure mostly to the design
| decisions the people behind DNSSEC made when they released
| the protocol.
| Metus wrote:
| > It's a shame, really, because DANE would've fixed so
| many problems.
|
| It would basically make services like Let's Encrypt
| unnecessary and would move us close to a world where
| email encryption and validation works by default.
| Thorrez wrote:
| HPKP was generally not recommended even when it was still
| around due to the danger of breaking your site.
| https://scotthelme.co.uk/im-giving-up-on-hpkp/
| radicalbyte wrote:
| We're already all used to running ad/script block on our
| clients so accept a certain level of breakage. It's just a
| part of the cost of using the web that some sites are crap
| (youtube being the big one nowadays) but in the end we just
| "route around them" (they die).
| wolrah wrote:
| > We're already all used to running ad/script block on our
| clients so accept a certain level of breakage.
|
| The "we" reading this post? Yeah, probably.
|
| The internet population as a whole? Absolutely not, nowhere
| close.
|
| I've been using Adblock or its descendants since the
| original Firefox extension where downloadable filter lists
| were a separate addon, and every time I have to browse a
| mainstream web site when using a "normal" person's computer
| it blows my mind how bad the experience is with all kinds
| of extra iframes I never normally see full of ads moving
| around, modals, etc. without even getting in to video
| content.
|
| Normal people don't troubleshoot things like we do, if it
| doesn't work they try to do the same thing over and over
| again until they get bored or annoyed and then either move
| on or call one of us to "fix it".
| radicalbyte wrote:
| If this goes through without change the browser vendors should
| implement an UX which allows the user to disable these root
| certificates; ideally within different contexts.
|
| I also hope that our community produces tools to allow the cert
| stack on our OSes to be purged of these certificates.
| EGreg wrote:
| Then they'll ban that UX. Just like US banned the ability to
| disclose how much taxes you pay for airline tickets
|
| EDIT: for clarification, they banned disclosing it in initial
| communications like emails. They can do same for browsers.
| Apple also successfully banned apps from disclosing links to
| buying stuff online etc.
| Thorrez wrote:
| I can still see taxes and fees when I'm booking a flight. I
| just checked on delta.com . I can see the total taxes and
| fees, and the breakdown of what they are and how much each
| one is. I'm in the US.
| EGreg wrote:
| I remember HN from over a decade ago:
| https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2012-01-31/spirit-
| airline...
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| Oh wow, what a way to spin it!
|
| Well, if Spirit Airlines is in fact being ingenuous, then
| they're -at best- one of the good guys demonstrating Why
| We Can't Have Nice Things.
|
| What happens is that -in some countries I've visited-
| people can legally advertise a particular sticker price,
| and then when you actually go to pay, you pay a very
| different amount. That threw me for a loop the first time
| I encountered it. I felt they were being tremendously
| dishonest.
|
| Where I live, you are totally permitted and encouraged to
| _also_ provide an itemized price breakdown, but the
| sticker price is what I 'm paying you at the end of the
| day. No surprises for the consumer.
| master-lincoln wrote:
| > for clarification, they banned disclosing it in initial
| communications like emails
|
| please give a source for that. That's the spin some airlines
| gave it, but as far as I understood the new requirement was
| to list the full price including taxes and fees in
| advertisements. This could be seen as hiding the fees and
| taxes, but the Airlines are still allowed to list fees and
| taxes.
|
| In Europe, listing the full price is mandated for all
| industries as far as I know. Feels bad as a customer to not
| know what you will have to pay upfront, like it is in most
| industries in the US. But it also feels weird to me that this
| ruling was only applied to the air travel industry.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| We already have that option. At least on desktop OSes. On
| mobile it's hard, especially on Android it's no longer possible
| to add root CAs in the system store without rooting, ever since
| Android 7.
|
| I believe on iOS you can do it with an MDM profile.
| imranhou wrote:
| It would be nice if browsers can require that certificates be co-
| signed by multiple, mutually distrusting root CAs, such as a
| hypothetical EU CA whose certificates are only trusted if also
| signed by an OSSF-backed root CA.
| motohagiography wrote:
| I had a comment, but I think the tide has passed the point where
| there is any value or wisdom in speaking against the intelligence
| agencies.
| Communitivity wrote:
| I would say it's not speaking against the intel agencies. The
| intelligence community protects us from many threats
| (terrorists, foreign organized crime, etc.). However, they are
| human, and make mistakes in the name of self-preservation, zeal
| for their mission, and in some cases greed.
|
| The intel agencies of different countries act as checks and
| balances against each other, to some degree. In some countries
| there are enough different intel agencies that they act as
| checks and balances against each other.
|
| However, the voice of the public is a great additional check on
| their behavior, especially when amplified by mainstream media
| and social media. Our elected officials want to be re-elected.
| Many will change their tune if they feel there is enough outcry
| that it might affect their poll numbers. And this is the only
| legal way to effect change in many countries.
| Yeul wrote:
| Making porn sites KYC is likely something that the public
| wants. There have been numerous cases of nude pics of minors
| ending up on "amateur" porn sites.
| HappMacDonald wrote:
| That's not Know Your Customer that's Know Your Producer.
| logicchains wrote:
| > The intelligence community protects us from many threats
| (terrorists, foreign organized crime, etc.
|
| Do you have any evidence for this?
| mistrial9 wrote:
| speaking to emphasize layered representation, _not_ the
| future-value of a single vote or wave of voters...
|
| Those representatives in a position to affect the arc of the
| actions here, especially those who work in the civilian
| sphere regularly, need all manner of support now.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Could we work around this by moving encryption to the
| application/website layer with client certificates? Please let me
| know if you see any reason this wouldn't work.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| You still have a bootstrapping problem. How do we establish
| what application-layer signatures are valid when a member state
| can forge a certificate for any origin at the transport-layer?
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Ideally through hardware keys, but I see how that's hard to
| adopt. It's not entirely unrealistic though in the context of
| Play Store/App Store for the first download of an app from
| Google/Apple servers to be protected in transport by hardware
| keys.
|
| Do the web browsers & operating systems face the same
| bootstrapping problem at the moment? At some point they must
| get their first certificate without using a certificate
| protected connection?
|
| Edit - in the context of service which exists pre regulation,
| the client certificate could also be derived from the user's
| existing login credentials.
| samus wrote:
| Of course they face that problem. It's a subset of the more
| general bootstrapping problem for a computer. So far, it
| mostly works as long as we can trust the hardware and we
| assume that the stack as we have it now is trustworthy.
|
| As soon as you download and install an OS via an MITMed
| connection, it's over.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| By using pre-shared keys instead of public key encryption.
| I'm not suggesting that is a practical solution for day-to-
| day use; I am saying this is how LE will be evaded, if this
| law should come to pass. So in effect, only criminals will
| have encryption.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Do your reckon there could be a consumer friendly way to
| generate pre-shared keys? With a Diffie-Hellman like
| algorithm
| layer8 wrote:
| Direct link to PDF: https://nce.mpi-
| sp.org/index.php/s/cG88cptFdaDNyRr/download/...
| hyperman1 wrote:
| Https always had problems with the long list of mysterious root
| certificates. Maybe this is the push needed to do something about
| it, e.g. :
|
| * Warn when a new root is user for the first time.
|
| * Warn when a site changes its root cert.
|
| * Warn when a root cert is used for DNS names that shouldnt
| belong to it, e.g. wrong tld.
|
| In a broader context, the question who you trust when will become
| more and more important. E.g. deepfakes might push us all to
| digitally sign their real messages. I don't think the current
| root certificate systems can survive the deluge of mistrust
| generated by AI.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| This would be really easy to detect. Just look at the certificate
| chain.
|
| It would be trivial to make a plugin to warn the user of this, at
| which point they know they're under surveillance which would be
| worse than just doing human surveillance IMO.
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