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EU Article 45 requires that browsers trust certificate authorities appointed by governments (www.eff.org)

submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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EU Article 45 requires that browsers trust certificate authorities appointed by governments::The EU is poised to pass a sweeping new regulation, eIDAS 2.0. Buried deep in the text is Article 45, which returns us to the dark ages of 2011, when certificate authorities (CAs) could collaborate with governments to spy on encrypted traffic—and get away with it. Article 45 forbids browsers from...

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[–] sonymegadrive@feddit.uk 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

That means cryptographic keys under one government’s control could be used to intercept HTTPS communication

Could someone smarter than me explain how this would be possible? Wouldn’t the browser still be able to enforce privacy between the client and origin? Or is it the case that certificates issued by these CAs could in theory only support weaker cyphers?

Edit: Some really useful explanations. Thank you!

[–] vagabond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

When a website uses HTTPS they have a certificate that proves who they are. Your device uses that certificate to encrypt your data so that only that service can decrypt it. The issue is that it's just a file and anyone can make one. So to determine whether I trust your certificate I need it to be cryptographically signed by someone I already trust. These are the certificate authorities.

If I was a certificate authority that your device trusts then I could create a certificate for any domain and your device would believe me. Meaning I could sit between you and any web service and have you encrypt things with my certificate in a way that lets me decrypt everything before forwarding it to the service and you would never know.

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