Viper007Bond
Premium
join:2002-09-26
Portland, OR | reply to knightmb
Re: Am I missing something?
Actually, it would protect you on the first connect assuming someone else has connected to the site before. The trusted servers keep a history of known certs over time. |
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knightmb
Everybody Lies
join:2003-12-01
Franklin, TN
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to cdru
said by cdru  :So how does having this "notary" prevent a man in the middle attack? If there is a man in the middle between me and my bank, for instance, why can't that same man be between this notary and my bank? It's based on the system of "how have things been" and "how have thing changed".
If your bank has always used the same certificate that doesn't expire for 8 years and one day at a coffee shop, the certificate has completely changed, but still "valid" as a MITM attack would do, it throws up an alert. I won't protect you from a MITM attack on the first ever visit to your banking website, only those afterward.
It's part of the problem computers have that humans tend to be better at. That's complete trust of strangers. If things look fishy, we get suspicious. Computers, they don't care, if 2 > 1, then they are happy. For us, when we see 2 > 1.5 we ask why 1.5 instead 1 like before?
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TKJunkMail
Enjoy the sun
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
 ·Comcast
| reply to cdru
said by cdru :So how does having this "notary" prevent a man in the middle attack? If there is a man in the middle between me and my bank, for instance, why can't that same man be between this notary and my bank? See pages 7 thru 9 of their paper where they discuss the statistical odds against pulling off a MITM attack against the client and also against the MULTIPLE notaries at the same time.
»www.cs.cmu.edu/~perspectives/per···ix08.pdf
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cdru
Go Colts
Premium,MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN | So how does having this "notary" prevent a man in the middle attack? If there is a man in the middle between me and my bank, for instance, why can't that same man be between this notary and my bank? |
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