That's news to me. That's not what I recall reading in numerous recent posts. In fact, I recall reading about dividing certs into groups, with one group being certs from unknown issuers, including self-signed certs, handled by SSH-like techniques alone. A user only has to slip once, and accept that self-signed cert that claims to be for his bank once.
A couple of points: First, you (and I think Ian as well) are confusing two separate proposals. Gerv has proposed keeping track of SSL history (i.e., a list of https URLs visited, hashed for privacy), so the browser can alert people when they visit a new SSL site they haven't been to before (e.g., a phishing site that purports to be the banking site they visit regularly). For the record, I think this proposal is worth considering.
In addition, I proposed two separate things in my "strawman SSL UI" proposal the other night: distinguishing between "low assurance" and "high assurance" certs in the SSL UI, and removing warning dialogs for self-signed certs and certs for unknown CAs in favor of treating them like non-SSL connections in terms of UI (i.e., no padlock) with an additional informational bar added to let the user know something is amiss.
My proposal and Gerv's are entirely separate, and in both cases represent strawman proposals for comment, not designs that are already slated for implementation. Also, I have little or no direct influence over the Firefox UI, so my proposal is more just personal blue-skying. Gerv has more influence than I, so if you're concerned about the Firefox SSL UI you should be directing your comments to him, not me.
Second, I just don't accept this idea that the current SSL UI is diametrically opposite to an SSH-style UI, and that a proposal like mine would "bring SSL down to the level of SSH" or some such. What happens with SSL right now on self-signed certs? You get a scary warning dialog, with a big OK button (the default option) which when pressed will "accept the cert temporarily for this session" and put you right into an SSL UI indistinguishable from that of firstnationalbank.com or whoever the user's normal bank is. There's also an option to "accept this cert permanently" which if selected will forever banish the warning dialog and treat the site as a legitimate SSL site until the end of time.
(As you said in another context, "A user only has to slip once, and accept that self-signed cert that claims to be for his bank once.")
So how is the current SSL UI really different from SSH? SSH too gives you scary warning dialogs (believe me, I've seen them) and gives you the opportunity to ignore them and go right ahead. Whatever you might think of my proposal, I think it's actually *less* like SSH than the current SSL UI, in at least two ways: a) it doesn't display the same UI for self-signed certs as for regular certs; and b) it makes it less likely that the user will "slip once" and accept a self-signed cert as equivalent to a CA-issued cert, since it doesn't put that choice right in front of the user's face to tempt them into making it.
Frank
-- Frank Hecker [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ mozilla-crypto mailing list [email protected] http://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/mozilla-crypto
