PKI too confusing to prevent phishing, part 28

[Bill Frantz]

On 9/25/05, paul.hoffman at vpnc.org (Paul Hoffman) wrote:

><http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=171200010>
>
>Summary: some phishes are going to SSL-secured sites that offer up 
>their own self-signed cert. Users see the warning and say "I've seen 
>that dialog box before, no problem", and accept the cert. From that 
>point on, the all-important lock is showing so they feel safe.

One important point is that the dialog box will appear the same, even if
the self-signed cert is signed by a different key.  It has no memory of
previously accessed sites.  It takes something like the petname or
trustbar tools to provide the memory that make self-signed certs like
SSH keys.

Cheers - Bill

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Bill Frantz        | The first thing you need   | Periwinkle 
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