On Thu, 2011-09-15 at 10:40 -0400, Allen Weiner wrote:
> On Thu, 2011-09-15 at 08:32 -0400, Joseph Apuzzo wrote:
> > A friend of mind turned me on to https://www.google.com aka to have an
> > encrypted conversation with Google.
> > I've been using it, since I like as much crypt-o traffic on the net as
> > possible.
> > 
> > But why? Anyone have any intelligent toughs on the subject, I would
> > like to hear your take on the service and what it's good for.
> > 
> > -- 
> 
> There has been a lot in the tech news lately that SSL has been
> compromised. Some consider SSL to be worthless. Some consider that the
> entire e-commerce infrastructure is insecure.
> 
> SSL depends on a "web of trust". This is implemented via security
> certificates issued by a certificate authority. Several of these
> cerificate authorities have been hacked/compromised (DigiNotar, Comodo).
> The security cerificate for Google in particular has been stolen.
> 
> I was alerted to this situation via the weekly radio show "PC Radio
> Show" on station WBAI. A regular participant on that show is David Perry
> of Trend Micro.
> This SSL issue was discussed on the August 10 show. (Program archive
> available at pcradioshow2.org). It was discussed further on more recent
> shows, but I don't recall which ones.
> 
> Disclaimer: I'm not knowledgeable in computer security.
> 

P.S. Here's an informative article on the topic, from "Linux Weekly
News" of Septamber 8. 

"Certificates and Authorities" http://lwn.net/Articles/45771/

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