freebsd security - Dec 2017 - http subversion URLs should be discontinued in favor of https URLs

On 12/05/17 12:59, Yuri wrote:
> I suggested this PR, but it got rejected: 
> https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=224097
>
>
> http is insecure in its nature, and is an easy target for MITM. This 
> is why https should be preferred. http needs to be discontinued and 
> shut down because as long as it exists somebody will keep using it and 
> will be in danger.
>
>
> Few years ago Wikimedia Foundation switched to https and discontinued 
> http entirely: 
> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/06/12/securing-wikimedia-sites-with-https 
> I think this makes a lot of sense, and FreeBSD should do the same.
>
>
> It's understood that a lot of arguments can be made for and against 
> this, like with any other issue, but security argument should outweigh 
> most or all other arguments.


Let's forget about all the abstract arguments and considerations, and 
consider this concrete scenario:

Let's assume there is the malicious hacker who runs the malicious Tor 
exit node. In his attempt to spread malware, he watches all outbound 
http traffic for subversion requests to the domain FreeBSD.org. Once he 
detects such request, he serves the maliciously patched versions of 
popular ports and kernel in a hope that they will be rebuilt locally and 
run. The unfortunate FreeBSD user who updated his source tree through 
Tor got infected. This can't possibly happen if https protocol was in 
use, because the hacker is just a private person and doesn't have access 
to any CA authorities, and doesn't impersonate anybody.

Please justify the use of the http protocol in the face of this scenario.


Yuri

--------
In message <2a6d123c-8ee5-8e1e-d99b-4bce02345308 at rawbw.com>, Yuri
writes:
>The unfortunate FreeBSD user who updated his source tree through 
>Tor [...]
Why would anybody do that in the first place ?

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.