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this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Privacy
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Can you link to something with more info on how it works? I know how certs work and CAs but not how some random wifi network can hijack that whole trust system. It sounds like it would defeat the whole purpose of https. Thanks in advance.
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/security/what-is-https-inspection/
https://blog.cloudflare.com/monsters-in-the-middleboxes/
While this has traditionally been achieved by having the end client install a new certificate into their device for the corporations certificate authority, Google and other security firms also offer network appliances that will do this using certificates your device already trusts such as the above Google Trust Services LLC certificate. I've also experienced this 4 years ago with connections intercepted using certs from DigiCert and I'm sure there are others out there.
Https is dependent on a chain of trust, but most end users no little to nothing about it and definitely don't chose which certificates to base that chain of trust on. Instead you're given a set of certificates from the os/software developers and told to trust everything that leads back to those without any idea who has the authority to sign with those certificates.
Theoretically speaking; I could have an insider at letsencrypt who bypasses their check to see if I actually control a particular domain and instead just issues every certificate for any domain I ask for. Your browser wouldn't know the difference, just accepting them as valid certs as they've got the domains you asked for and they're signed by someone the browser trusts.
Google and others sell exactly that service.