I'm sure many have heard about this: https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens into installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow the government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS pages (at least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed, other governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
Yury
What is the position of the Kazakhstan chapter on this?
The Turnip
On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 at 11:36, Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com wrote:
I'm sure many have heard about this: https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens into installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow the government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS pages (at least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed, other governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I do not think Kazakhstan has a chapter. In the past, some Kazakh Wikimedians enjoyed close collaboration with the government (for example, the Kazakhstani Encyclopedia has been released under a free license and verbatim copied to the Kazakh Wikipedia, so that I do not expect much.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 12:45 PM Thomas Townsend homesec1783@gmail.com wrote:
Yury
What is the position of the Kazakhstan chapter on this?
The Turnip
On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 at 11:36, Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com wrote:
I'm sure many have heard about this:
https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens into installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow the government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS pages (at least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed, other governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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I'm not in Kazakhstan and am not in directly touch with any of wikimedians there, so I don't know their position.
However, I'm not sure how much freedom they have in expressing their honest opinion about this publicly. Simply because it is always a pros-and-cons calculation to criticise your local goverment in such situations.
Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com writes:
I do not think Kazakhstan has a chapter. In the past, some Kazakh Wikimedians enjoyed close collaboration with the government (for example, the Kazakhstani Encyclopedia has been released under a free license and verbatim copied to the Kazakh Wikipedia, so that I do not expect much.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 12:45 PM Thomas Townsend homesec1783@gmail.com wrote:
Yury
What is the position of the Kazakhstan chapter on this?
The Turnip
On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 at 11:36, Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com wrote:
I'm sure many have heard about this:
https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens into installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow the government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS pages (at least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed, other governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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I don't see any position from Mozilla on this yet: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1567114 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.security.policy/wnuKAhAC...
Couldn't find anything about Google Chrome.
Meanwhile, I have emailed security@wikimedia.org with a link to this discussion (hope it's not a terribly inappropriate thing to do).
I'd be great to hear from WMF about their view on this.
Best, Yury.
Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com writes:
I'm not in Kazakhstan and am not in directly touch with any of wikimedians there, so I don't know their position.
However, I'm not sure how much freedom they have in expressing their honest opinion about this publicly. Simply because it is always a pros-and-cons calculation to criticise your local goverment in such situations.
Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com writes:
I do not think Kazakhstan has a chapter. In the past, some Kazakh Wikimedians enjoyed close collaboration with the government (for example, the Kazakhstani Encyclopedia has been released under a free license and verbatim copied to the Kazakh Wikipedia, so that I do not expect much.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 12:45 PM Thomas Townsend homesec1783@gmail.com wrote:
Yury
What is the position of the Kazakhstan chapter on this?
The Turnip
On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 at 11:36, Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com wrote:
I'm sure many have heard about this:
https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens into installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow the government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS pages (at least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed, other governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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The Kazakhstan MITM could be stopped by HTTP Public Key Pinning [1], but Chrome seems to have dropped support for HPKP[2]? Dropping HPKP made the MITM attack possible, by forcing the users to install the root certificate, as many of the sites listed has been on the HPKP list. With HPKP in place the scheme would be somewhat harder to implement.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Public_Key_Pinning [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1412438
On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 3:05 PM Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com wrote:
I don't see any position from Mozilla on this yet: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1567114
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.security.policy/wnuKAhAC...
Couldn't find anything about Google Chrome.
Meanwhile, I have emailed security@wikimedia.org with a link to this discussion (hope it's not a terribly inappropriate thing to do).
I'd be great to hear from WMF about their view on this.
Best, Yury.
Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com writes:
I'm not in Kazakhstan and am not in directly touch with any of wikimedians there, so I don't know their position.
However, I'm not sure how much freedom they have in expressing their honest opinion about this publicly. Simply because it is always a pros-and-cons calculation to criticise your local goverment in such situations.
Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com writes:
I do not think Kazakhstan has a chapter. In the past, some Kazakh Wikimedians enjoyed close collaboration with the government (for
example,
the Kazakhstani Encyclopedia has been released under a free license and verbatim copied to the Kazakh Wikipedia, so that I do not expect much.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 12:45 PM Thomas Townsend <homesec1783@gmail.com
wrote:
Yury
What is the position of the Kazakhstan chapter on this?
The Turnip
On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 at 11:36, Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com wrote:
I'm sure many have heard about this:
https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens
into
installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow
the
government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS pages
(at
least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as
not
only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed,
other
governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe browsers always ignored HPKP rules when presented with a cert signed by a CA that is locally installed rather than default.
On Sun, 28 Jul 2019, 12:58 John Erling Blad, jeblad@gmail.com wrote:
The Kazakhstan MITM could be stopped by HTTP Public Key Pinning [1], but Chrome seems to have dropped support for HPKP[2]? Dropping HPKP made the MITM attack possible, by forcing the users to install the root certificate, as many of the sites listed has been on the HPKP list. With HPKP in place the scheme would be somewhat harder to implement.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Public_Key_Pinning [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1412438
On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 3:05 PM Yury Bulka < setthemfree@privacyrequired.com> wrote:
I don't see any position from Mozilla on this yet: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1567114
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.security.policy/wnuKAhAC...
Couldn't find anything about Google Chrome.
Meanwhile, I have emailed security@wikimedia.org with a link to this discussion (hope it's not a terribly inappropriate thing to do).
I'd be great to hear from WMF about their view on this.
Best, Yury.
Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com writes:
I'm not in Kazakhstan and am not in directly touch with any of wikimedians there, so I don't know their position.
However, I'm not sure how much freedom they have in expressing their honest opinion about this publicly. Simply because it is always a pros-and-cons calculation to criticise your local goverment in such situations.
Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com writes:
I do not think Kazakhstan has a chapter. In the past, some Kazakh Wikimedians enjoyed close collaboration with the government (for
example,
the Kazakhstani Encyclopedia has been released under a free license
and
verbatim copied to the Kazakh Wikipedia, so that I do not expect much.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 12:45 PM Thomas Townsend <
homesec1783@gmail.com
wrote:
Yury
What is the position of the Kazakhstan chapter on this?
The Turnip
On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 at 11:36, Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com wrote:
I'm sure many have heard about this:
https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens
into
installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow
the
government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS
pages
(at
least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as
not
only they would be easily able to see which articles people read,
but
also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed,
other
governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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You are right. “Firefox and Chrome disable pin validation for pinned hosts whose validated certificate chain terminates at a user-defined trust anchor (rather than a built-in trust anchor). This means that for users who imported custom root certificates all pinning violations are ignored.” [1]
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Public_Key_Pinning
On Sun, Jul 28, 2019 at 2:07 PM Alex Monk krenair@gmail.com wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe browsers always ignored HPKP rules when presented with a cert signed by a CA that is locally installed rather than default.
On Sun, 28 Jul 2019, 12:58 John Erling Blad, jeblad@gmail.com wrote:
The Kazakhstan MITM could be stopped by HTTP Public Key Pinning [1], but Chrome seems to have dropped support for HPKP[2]? Dropping HPKP made the MITM attack possible, by forcing the users to install the root
certificate,
as many of the sites listed has been on the HPKP list. With HPKP in place the scheme would be somewhat harder to implement.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Public_Key_Pinning [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1412438
On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 3:05 PM Yury Bulka < setthemfree@privacyrequired.com> wrote:
I don't see any position from Mozilla on this yet: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1567114
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.security.policy/wnuKAhAC...
Couldn't find anything about Google Chrome.
Meanwhile, I have emailed security@wikimedia.org with a link to this discussion (hope it's not a terribly inappropriate thing to do).
I'd be great to hear from WMF about their view on this.
Best, Yury.
Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com writes:
I'm not in Kazakhstan and am not in directly touch with any of wikimedians there, so I don't know their position.
However, I'm not sure how much freedom they have in expressing their honest opinion about this publicly. Simply because it is always a pros-and-cons calculation to criticise your local goverment in such situations.
Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com writes:
I do not think Kazakhstan has a chapter. In the past, some Kazakh Wikimedians enjoyed close collaboration with the government (for
example,
the Kazakhstani Encyclopedia has been released under a free license
and
verbatim copied to the Kazakh Wikipedia, so that I do not expect
much.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 12:45 PM Thomas Townsend <
homesec1783@gmail.com
wrote:
Yury
What is the position of the Kazakhstan chapter on this?
The Turnip
On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 at 11:36, Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com wrote: > > I'm sure many have heard about this: >
https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
> > Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing
citizens
into
> installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would
allow
the
> government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS
traffic.
> > Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS
pages
(at
> least on some ISPs). > > I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia,
as
not
> only they would be easily able to see which articles people read,
but
> also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even
hijack
> admin accounts. > > Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed,
other
> governments may start doing the same. > > I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet? > > Best, > Yury. > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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Seems like something happen early Friday morning.[1]
[1] https://censoredplanet.org/kazakhstan/live
On Sun, Jul 28, 2019 at 2:43 PM John Erling Blad jeblad@gmail.com wrote:
You are right. “Firefox and Chrome disable pin validation for pinned hosts whose validated certificate chain terminates at a user-defined trust anchor (rather than a built-in trust anchor). This means that for users who imported custom root certificates all pinning violations are ignored.” [1]
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Public_Key_Pinning
On Sun, Jul 28, 2019 at 2:07 PM Alex Monk krenair@gmail.com wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe browsers always ignored HPKP rules when presented with a cert signed by a CA that is locally installed rather than default.
On Sun, 28 Jul 2019, 12:58 John Erling Blad, jeblad@gmail.com wrote:
The Kazakhstan MITM could be stopped by HTTP Public Key Pinning [1], but Chrome seems to have dropped support for HPKP[2]? Dropping HPKP made the MITM attack possible, by forcing the users to install the root
certificate,
as many of the sites listed has been on the HPKP list. With HPKP in
place
the scheme would be somewhat harder to implement.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Public_Key_Pinning [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1412438
On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 3:05 PM Yury Bulka < setthemfree@privacyrequired.com> wrote:
I don't see any position from Mozilla on this yet: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1567114
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.security.policy/wnuKAhAC...
Couldn't find anything about Google Chrome.
Meanwhile, I have emailed security@wikimedia.org with a link to this discussion (hope it's not a terribly inappropriate thing to do).
I'd be great to hear from WMF about their view on this.
Best, Yury.
Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com writes:
I'm not in Kazakhstan and am not in directly touch with any of wikimedians there, so I don't know their position.
However, I'm not sure how much freedom they have in expressing their honest opinion about this publicly. Simply because it is always a pros-and-cons calculation to criticise your local goverment in such situations.
Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com writes:
I do not think Kazakhstan has a chapter. In the past, some Kazakh Wikimedians enjoyed close collaboration with the government (for
example,
the Kazakhstani Encyclopedia has been released under a free license
and
verbatim copied to the Kazakh Wikipedia, so that I do not expect
much.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 12:45 PM Thomas Townsend <
homesec1783@gmail.com
wrote:
> Yury > > What is the position of the Kazakhstan chapter on this? > > The Turnip > > On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 at 11:36, Yury Bulka > setthemfree@privacyrequired.com wrote: > > > > I'm sure many have heard about this: > > >
https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
> > > > Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing
citizens
into
> > installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would
allow
the
> > government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS
traffic.
> > > > Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS
pages
(at
> > least on some ISPs). > > > > I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia &
Wikimedia, as
not
> > only they would be easily able to see which articles people
read,
but
> > also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even
hijack
> > admin accounts. > > > > Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will
succeed,
other
> > governments may start doing the same. > > > > I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet? > > > > Best, > > Yury. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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?subject=unsubscribe>
> > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
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FYI, it seems Wikimedia is not being intercepted at the moment. https://censoredplanet.org/kazakhstan
Of course, that may change.
It may also be relevant that Wikimedia uses HSTS, and that will make it difficult for users to access the sites with intercepted certificates if they have accessed the sites previously.
Chico Venancio
Em dom, 28 de jul de 2019 08:58, John Erling Blad jeblad@gmail.com escreveu:
The Kazakhstan MITM could be stopped by HTTP Public Key Pinning [1], but Chrome seems to have dropped support for HPKP[2]? Dropping HPKP made the MITM attack possible, by forcing the users to install the root certificate, as many of the sites listed has been on the HPKP list. With HPKP in place the scheme would be somewhat harder to implement.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Public_Key_Pinning [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1412438
On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 3:05 PM Yury Bulka < setthemfree@privacyrequired.com> wrote:
I don't see any position from Mozilla on this yet: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1567114
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.security.policy/wnuKAhAC...
Couldn't find anything about Google Chrome.
Meanwhile, I have emailed security@wikimedia.org with a link to this discussion (hope it's not a terribly inappropriate thing to do).
I'd be great to hear from WMF about their view on this.
Best, Yury.
Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com writes:
I'm not in Kazakhstan and am not in directly touch with any of wikimedians there, so I don't know their position.
However, I'm not sure how much freedom they have in expressing their honest opinion about this publicly. Simply because it is always a pros-and-cons calculation to criticise your local goverment in such situations.
Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com writes:
I do not think Kazakhstan has a chapter. In the past, some Kazakh Wikimedians enjoyed close collaboration with the government (for
example,
the Kazakhstani Encyclopedia has been released under a free license
and
verbatim copied to the Kazakh Wikipedia, so that I do not expect much.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 12:45 PM Thomas Townsend <
homesec1783@gmail.com
wrote:
Yury
What is the position of the Kazakhstan chapter on this?
The Turnip
On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 at 11:36, Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com wrote:
I'm sure many have heard about this:
https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens
into
installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow
the
government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS
pages
(at
least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as
not
only they would be easily able to see which articles people read,
but
also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed,
other
governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
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Yaroslav
If there is no local chapter willing and able to take action, then presumably it falls to WMF central to do so, as they have in the USA and Turkey
The Turnip
On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 at 12:41, Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com wrote:
I do not think Kazakhstan has a chapter. In the past, some Kazakh Wikimedians enjoyed close collaboration with the government (for example, the Kazakhstani Encyclopedia has been released under a free license and verbatim copied to the Kazakh Wikipedia, so that I do not expect much.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 12:45 PM Thomas Townsend homesec1783@gmail.com wrote:
Yury
What is the position of the Kazakhstan chapter on this?
The Turnip
On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 at 11:36, Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com wrote:
I'm sure many have heard about this:
https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens into installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow the government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS pages (at least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed, other governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
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https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
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That's shocking...
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Yes, they can de-crypt the traffic. Hopefully browser vendors will disallow the root certificate. IMHO there isn't much WP can do, expect showing a warning if somebody is trying to login from the country in question.
--Steinsplitter
________________________________ Von: Wikimedia-l wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org im Auftrag von Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com Gesendet: Sonntag, 21. Juli 2019 12:36 An: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Betreff: [Wikimedia-l] Universal forced HTTPS backdoor in Kazakhstan
I'm sure many have heard about this: https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens into installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow the government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS pages (at least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed, other governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I don't think browser vendors will block the ability to install a custom root certificate because some corp clients may use it for exactly the same reason -- creating an HTTPS proxy with fake certs in order to analyze internal traffic (in the name of monitoring/security).
Browser vendors could make it more difficult to install, so that it would require the corp IT department to do some magic, or even release two versions of the browser - corp and general (with blocked uncertified root certs), but at the end of the day those could be worked around.
The biggest deterrent in my opinion is to educating the users of the dangers such certs would do (i.e. all your passwords and bank info will be viewable by ISPs) - thus it would be social rather than purely technical solution.
On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 1:33 PM Steinsplitter Wiki < steinsplitter@wikipedia.de> wrote:
That's shocking...
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Yes, they can de-crypt the traffic. Hopefully browser vendors will disallow the root certificate. IMHO there isn't much WP can do, expect showing a warning if somebody is trying to login from the country in question.
--Steinsplitter
Von: Wikimedia-l wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org im Auftrag von Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com Gesendet: Sonntag, 21. Juli 2019 12:36 An: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Betreff: [Wikimedia-l] Universal forced HTTPS backdoor in Kazakhstan
I'm sure many have heard about this:
https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens into installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow the government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS pages (at least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed, other governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Browser vendors could revoke the root that Kazakh authorities are using for the scheme.
On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 5:35 AM Yuri Astrakhan yuriastrakhan@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think browser vendors will block the ability to install a custom root certificate because some corp clients may use it for exactly the same reason -- creating an HTTPS proxy with fake certs in order to analyze internal traffic (in the name of monitoring/security).
Browser vendors could make it more difficult to install, so that it would require the corp IT department to do some magic, or even release two versions of the browser - corp and general (with blocked uncertified root certs), but at the end of the day those could be worked around.
The biggest deterrent in my opinion is to educating the users of the dangers such certs would do (i.e. all your passwords and bank info will be viewable by ISPs) - thus it would be social rather than purely technical solution.
On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 1:33 PM Steinsplitter Wiki < steinsplitter@wikipedia.de> wrote:
That's shocking...
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as
not
only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Yes, they can de-crypt the traffic. Hopefully browser vendors will disallow the root certificate. IMHO there isn't much WP can do, expect showing a warning if somebody is trying to login from the country in question.
--Steinsplitter
Von: Wikimedia-l wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org im Auftrag
von
Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com Gesendet: Sonntag, 21. Juli 2019 12:36 An: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Betreff: [Wikimedia-l] Universal forced HTTPS backdoor in Kazakhstan
I'm sure many have heard about this:
https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens into installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow the government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS pages (at least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed, other governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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displaying a warning that there is a MITM which reads all passwords and banking information sounds nice, yuri. there even seems to be ways to detect this client-server side: https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/7ldypq/is_it_possible_to_detect... - you mean something like this would do, yury?
george, the trusted root certificates would be configurable, usually, like for chrome here: https://support.securly.com/hc/en-us/articles/206081828-How-to-manually-inst... companies pay money to get into this list, so they can easier sell their website certificates. closing down the list for sure leads to some anti-trust legal action in other countries.
btw, recently there was a blog post from a developer in iran, saying the same : https://shahinsorkh.ir/2019/07/20/how-is-it-like-to-be-a-dev-in-iran
this had an even more surprising aspect - not only would the country block access to some site - but sites itself decided to remove users having a relationship with that country: "Slack team, decided to join the sanctions. They simply deleted every single user who they found out is Iranian! With no real prior notices! Many people has lost their data on Slack and no one was going to do anything!"
rupert
On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 7:05 PM George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Browser vendors could revoke the root that Kazakh authorities are using for the scheme.
On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 5:35 AM Yuri Astrakhan yuriastrakhan@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think browser vendors will block the ability to install a custom root certificate because some corp clients may use it for exactly the
same
reason -- creating an HTTPS proxy with fake certs in order to analyze internal traffic (in the name of monitoring/security).
Browser vendors could make it more difficult to install, so that it would require the corp IT department to do some magic, or even release two versions of the browser - corp and general (with blocked uncertified root certs), but at the end of the day those could be worked around.
The biggest deterrent in my opinion is to educating the users of the dangers such certs would do (i.e. all your passwords and bank info will
be
viewable by ISPs) - thus it would be social rather than purely technical solution.
On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 1:33 PM Steinsplitter Wiki < steinsplitter@wikipedia.de> wrote:
That's shocking...
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as
not
only they would be easily able to see which articles people read,
but
also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Yes, they can de-crypt the traffic. Hopefully browser vendors will disallow the root certificate. IMHO there isn't much WP can do, expect showing a warning if somebody
is
trying to login from the country in question.
--Steinsplitter
Von: Wikimedia-l wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org im Auftrag
von
Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com Gesendet: Sonntag, 21. Juli 2019 12:36 An: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Betreff: [Wikimedia-l] Universal forced HTTPS backdoor in Kazakhstan
I'm sure many have heard about this:
https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens into installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow the government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS pages
(at
least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed, other governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Honestly, I am not sure what actions would be appropriate.
My initial reaction was - Wikipedia (and all Wikimedia sites) is HTTPS-only, and this undermines HTTPS as such.
So if Wikipedia should only be accessible over (real, no man-in-the-middle) HTTPS, perhaps requests that don't meet this criteria should not be allowed. (Maybe a landing page displayed explaining the security implications).
Another thought that poped up in my mind was to make it read-only over unsecure connections.
I'm not very familiar with the circumstances of the 2015 decision to move to mandatory HTTPS and if that implied being blocked or inaccessible in whole countries as a consequence of this policy. But if that was the case, Kazakhstan perhaps falls into a similar category?
The technical difference (no HTTPS vs a HTTPS only if users allow government man-in-the-middle) is just a technical detail in my opinion, as the effects are the same as if Wikipedia was made only accessible over unencrypted HTTP in Kazakhstan.
Showing warnings is of course an option, but I am not sure if this is an effective security measure if users are forced by the goverment to install a backdoor.
Maybe it's better if Wikipedia would only be accessible over VPN or Tor if direct HTTPS is undermined this way. This would of course only work if users can have a secure connection to a VPN...
Hopefully, browsers do blacklist the certificate. And hopefully, they will not start a cat-and-mouse game by rotating their certificate...
rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com writes:
displaying a warning that there is a MITM which reads all passwords and banking information sounds nice, yuri. there even seems to be ways to detect this client-server side: https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/7ldypq/is_it_possible_to_detect...
you mean something like this would do, yury?
george, the trusted root certificates would be configurable, usually, like for chrome here: https://support.securly.com/hc/en-us/articles/206081828-How-to-manually-inst... companies pay money to get into this list, so they can easier sell their website certificates. closing down the list for sure leads to some anti-trust legal action in other countries.
btw, recently there was a blog post from a developer in iran, saying the same : https://shahinsorkh.ir/2019/07/20/how-is-it-like-to-be-a-dev-in-iran
this had an even more surprising aspect - not only would the country block access to some site - but sites itself decided to remove users having a relationship with that country: "Slack team, decided to join the sanctions. They simply deleted every single user who they found out is Iranian! With no real prior notices! Many people has lost their data on Slack and no one was going to do anything!"
rupert
On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 7:05 PM George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Browser vendors could revoke the root that Kazakh authorities are using for the scheme.
On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 5:35 AM Yuri Astrakhan yuriastrakhan@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think browser vendors will block the ability to install a custom root certificate because some corp clients may use it for exactly the
same
reason -- creating an HTTPS proxy with fake certs in order to analyze internal traffic (in the name of monitoring/security).
Browser vendors could make it more difficult to install, so that it would require the corp IT department to do some magic, or even release two versions of the browser - corp and general (with blocked uncertified root certs), but at the end of the day those could be worked around.
The biggest deterrent in my opinion is to educating the users of the dangers such certs would do (i.e. all your passwords and bank info will
be
viewable by ISPs) - thus it would be social rather than purely technical solution.
On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 1:33 PM Steinsplitter Wiki < steinsplitter@wikipedia.de> wrote:
That's shocking...
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as
not
only they would be easily able to see which articles people read,
but
also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Yes, they can de-crypt the traffic. Hopefully browser vendors will disallow the root certificate. IMHO there isn't much WP can do, expect showing a warning if somebody
is
trying to login from the country in question.
--Steinsplitter
Von: Wikimedia-l wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org im Auftrag
von
Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com Gesendet: Sonntag, 21. Juli 2019 12:36 An: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Betreff: [Wikimedia-l] Universal forced HTTPS backdoor in Kazakhstan
I'm sure many have heard about this:
https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/kazakhstan-https-security-certificate.html
Essentially, the government in Kazakhstan started forcing citizens into installing a root TLS certificate on their devices that would allow the government to intercept, decrypt and manipulate all HTTPS traffic.
Without the centificate, it seems, citizens can't access HTTPS pages
(at
least on some ISPs).
I think this has serious implications for Wikipedia & Wikimedia, as not only they would be easily able to see which articles people read, but also steal login credentials, depseudonymize people and even hijack admin accounts.
Another danger is that if this effort by Kazakhstan will succeed, other governments may start doing the same.
I wonder if WMF has any position on this yet?
Best, Yury.
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Google, Apple, Mozilla move to block Kazakh surveillance system
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kazakhstan-internet-surveillance/google-a...
I'm getting a 404:(
John Erling Blad jeblad@gmail.com writes:
Google, Apple, Mozilla move to block Kazakh surveillance system
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kazakhstan-internet-surveillance/google-a... _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
link works fine for me Yury
On Fri, 23 Aug 2019 at 10:29, Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com wrote:
I'm getting a 404:(
John Erling Blad jeblad@gmail.com writes:
Google, Apple, Mozilla move to block Kazakh surveillance system
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kazakhstan-internet-surveillance/google-a...
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Hm, interesting - the page reports 404 if JS is disabled, but loads otherwise. Thanks for the hint. Also sharing Mozilla's statement:
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/08/21/mozilla-takes-action-to-protect-use...
Good to know.
RhinosF1 rhinosf1@gmail.com writes:
link works fine for me Yury
On Fri, 23 Aug 2019 at 10:29, Yury Bulka setthemfree@privacyrequired.com wrote:
I'm getting a 404:(
John Erling Blad jeblad@gmail.com writes:
Google, Apple, Mozilla move to block Kazakh surveillance system
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kazakhstan-internet-surveillance/google-a...
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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