Re: SSL not required for setup.exe download

[Andrey Repin <anrdaemon@yandex.ru>]

Greetings, Archie Cobbs!

> On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 2:43 PM Brian Inglis

>> On 2019-03-11 07:43, Archie Cobbs wrote:
>> > On Sun, Mar 10, 2019 at 10:51 PM Brian Inglis wrote:
>> >>>>> Is there any reason not to force this redirect and close this security hole?
>> >> There are apparently reasons not to force this redirect as it can also cause a
>> >> security hole.
>> > That's really interesting. Can you provide more detail?
>>
>> Search for HTTP HTTPS redirection SSL stripping MitM attack

> I did, but I only get results relating to the "stripping" attack,
> which downgrades from HTTPS to HTTP.

> Obviously that would cause a reduction in security... But what I'm
> suggesting is the opposite: redirecting from HTTP to HTTPS.

> How could that reduce security?

> (sigh)

> I must say I'm surprised so many people think it's a good idea to
> leave cygwin open to trivial MITM attacks, which is the current state
> of affairs.

> This is my opinion only of course, but if cygwin wants to have any
> security credibility, it should simply disallow non-SSL downloads of
> setup.exe. Otherwise the chain of authenticity is broken forever.

All the SSL stuff is build on idea of implicit unlimited trust.
Which is way worse in my opinion, than any theoretical MITM attack, which is
easily mitigated with proper validation of your downloads.
It gives you false sense of security. What is worse, everybody is attempting
to reassure this false sense on every possible occasion.

P.S.
Unrelated to the ongoing discussion, please teach your mail client to not
quote raw email addresses.
The mailing list is publicly archived.
There's no pressing need to feed every spambot in existence with a new batch
of fresh targets.


-- 
With best regards,
Andrey Repin
Tuesday, March 12, 2019 3:11:28

Sorry for my terrible english...


--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple