[Bug 25972] Please require a secure origin

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=25972

--- Comment #5 from Ryan Sleevi <sleevi@google.com> ---
(In reply to Boris Zbarsky from comment #4)
> Ryan, the issue with just telling implementations to do whatever they want
> is that you don't get to interop that way.  So I think we _do_ want to
> define exactly where this API is available.

The spec already says that.

There are zero mandatory algorithms.

> 
> My personal preference is that it's available everywhere; I haven't seen
> particularly good arguments against doing that, honestly.  But just having
> the spec explicitly say that the API can either work or not, completely
> randomly from the point of view of authors, is really not OK.

There is no way to build a secure system on an insecure transport. Even the
'best case' example, provided by Netflix, requires bootstrapping trust either
using a UA-specific means (named key discovery, among others), or first
bootstrapping on TLS. Even when bootstrapped over TLS, the resultant API
provides no meaningful security guarantees for the user - it's just an
authentication mechanism.

Unlike exposing low-level cryptographic primitives, which CAN be combined into
ways that grant REAL security (eg: the combination of CBC+HMAC+random IV in
EtM, ala the mcgrew AEAD), this is something which CAN NOT be used to provide
meaningful security in isolation.

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Received on Wednesday, 4 June 2014 21:00:42 UTC