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>> In all of those cases above, if you allowed the connection it would |
| 2 |
>> still be SSL encrypted. You'd be protected against packet sniffers but |
| 3 |
>> not against man-in-the-middle attack. |
| 4 |
|
| 5 |
And the reason someone will man-in-the-middle you, is so they can |
| 6 |
sniff your traffic and get passwords or other sensitive information. |
| 7 |
This is done by terminating the SSL session from you, and then |
| 8 |
creating a new SSL session to the real server. |
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|
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>> By switching to http your |
| 11 |
>> session occurs in plain-text and is vulnerable to both attacks. |
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>> |
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> |
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> OK, clearly I'm overstating the problem then. I haven't ever had any |
| 15 |
> problems logging into password protected, little closed lock in the |
| 16 |
> bottom corner web sites so that's not a problem. The real problem I've |
| 17 |
> noticed the most is just with these links that arrive as https:// type |
| 18 |
> links and Firefox asking me to specifically accept these certificates |
| 19 |
> which I don't really want to do. |
| 20 |
|
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Is the problem that accepting the certificate is inconvenient? |
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|
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> And I've not had any problems I've noticed by just removing the 's' |
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> and using the site like a regular site. |
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|
| 26 |
That's ok if you understand that you're turning off the security |
| 27 |
features, so it will be possible for an attacker to see your traffic. |
| 28 |
|
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> So, I guess there really isn't any problem with my system. |
| 30 |
|
| 31 |
Correct - the problem is on the server that you're connecting to is |
| 32 |
presenting an untrusted certificate. That could be because its a |
| 33 |
server that's impersonating the server you really want to connect to, |
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or the server's administrator is not doing their job. In rare cases it |
| 35 |
could also be that the certificate has been revoked or the CA is no |
| 36 |
longer trusted by your web browser (eg the Diginotar mentioned |
| 37 |
earlier). |
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