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In-Reply-To: <1b570593-0ec7-0890-26ef-7e7468534f47@SystematicSw.ab.ca>
From: Archie Cobbs <archie.cobbs@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2019 17:14:11 -0500
Message-ID: <CANSoFxsq+5OfRH7RF3QdpMSJU-4JAKSCZM-rUUysP5Y3myR0+Q@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: SSL not required for setup.exe download
To: Brian.Inglis@systematicsw.ab.ca, cygwin@cygwin.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 2:43 PM Brian Inglis
<Brian.Inglis@systematicsw.ab.ca> wrote:
> On 2019-03-11 07:43, Archie Cobbs wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 10, 2019 at 10:51 PM Brian Inglis wrote:
> >>>>> Is there any reason not to force this redirect and close this security hole?
> >> There are apparently reasons not to force this redirect as it can also cause a
> >> security hole.
> > That's really interesting. Can you provide more detail?
>
> Search for HTTP HTTPS redirection SSL stripping MitM attack

I did, but I only get results relating to the "stripping" attack,
which downgrades from HTTPS to HTTP.

Obviously that would cause a reduction in security... But what I'm
suggesting is the opposite: redirecting from HTTP to HTTPS.

How could that reduce security?

(sigh)

I must say I'm surprised so many people think it's a good idea to
leave cygwin open to trivial MITM attacks, which is the current state
of affairs.

This is my opinion only of course, but if cygwin wants to have any
security credibility, it should simply disallow non-SSL downloads of
setup.exe. Otherwise the chain of authenticity is broken forever.

-AC

-- 
Archie L. Cobbs

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