Gervase Markham wrote:

> It should not convey the impression that it's more, but it should not
> convey the impression that it's less.

Actually As far as I'm concerned this is a moot point, because it still
instils a false sense of security, just slightly modified from what your
suggesting...

> Encryption protects you from unknown people eavesdropping on your
> conversation. How useful is that protection when you have no way of
> knowing who you are conversing with?

Since the browser doesn't warn about changing certificate fingerprints
you can't assume that you are still talking to who you think you are
either, while harder to exploit, not impossible for a CA to issue a
fraudulent certificate which can be used by (ISPs, Government agencies,
anyone else with a sufficiently large wad of cash) to man in the middle
traffic, and after all if you have a sufficiently large wad of cash to
pay lawyers to draw up policy documents, then pay more case to WebTrust
to say yes you adhere to your policies, you too can be included in any
browser you like!

Basically this whole argument is based on the principal that CAs aren't
corrupt, or aren't able to be given a gag order and an order to comply
to some government's wishes. Not to mention one or more CAs openly
advertise they do a lot of snoop services?

So at the end of the day we're all pretty much only able to assume SSL
can protect non-important passwords, and credit card numbers, after all
any government worth it's salt should be able to obtain the later
without resorting to traffic interception.

-- 

Best regards,
 Duane

http://www.cacert.org - Free Security Certificates
http://www.nodedb.com - Think globally, network locally
http://www.sydneywireless.com - Telecommunications Freedom
http://happysnapper.com.au - Sell your photos over the net!
http://e164.org - Using Enum.164 to interconnect asterisk servers

"In the long run the pessimist may be proved right,
    but the optimist has a better time on the trip."
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