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Re: [TLS] Deployment ... Re: This working group has failed

Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net> Wed, 27 November 2013 01:05 UTC

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From: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 17:05:13 -0800
Message-ID: <CALCETrV-6nQfq_yMU5QSNw4coY3hbziUipE8xwLKn5R_xE6t0w@mail.gmail.com>
To: Nico Williams <nico@cryptonector.com>
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Cc: "tls@ietf.org" <tls@ietf.org>, Peter Gutmann <p.gutmann@auckland.ac.nz>
Subject: Re: [TLS] Deployment ... Re: This working group has failed
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On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 5:00 PM, Nico Williams <nico@cryptonector.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 5:51 PM, Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net> wrote:
>> Do you really think that "completely insecure against active attack"
>> is a good option?
>
> For some things, yes.  Specifically: SMTP.

Why?

My .msmtprc contains (excerpted):

tls on
tls_starttls on
tls_certcheck on
tls_min_dh_prime_bits 2048
tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt

host smtp.gmail.com

If msmtp were easier to configure, I'd pin Google's CA.  Sadly it's
not, but nonetheless this was *easy* to set up in such a way that my
SMTP is about as secure as HTTPS.

Why on earth is it considered acceptable that the defaults are
insecure?  If it's really okay to connect, *not verify the server
certificate*, and send a password without using a real PAKE algorithm,
then at least the software that does it should not pretend to offer
any form of security.

--Andy

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