📅 Original date posted:2013-08-09
📝 Original message:On 9 August 2013 14:08, Mike Hearn <mike at plan99.net> wrote:
> Bitcoin sought to reduce dependence on trusted third parties, where as,
>> persona is increasing the reach of trusted third parties. The keys and
>> passwords are stored on mozilla's servers, sometimes on your email
>> providers. Persona, is however, a progression and will hopefully improve
>> its security and decentralization as it goes along.
>>
>
> When Persona is supported by all the key players in a transaction Mozilla
> doesn't get anything, do they? You can easily run your own IDP on a
> personal server if you're the kind of person who likes to do that, then run
> Firefox so you have a native implementation and the Mozilla servers aren't
> involved. The keys never leave your computers.
>
You'd need to run your own email server and/or change email address, which
is not in the reach of the average user, and maybe not even of some
businesses.
>
> Whilst X.509 certs can indeed be issued for any arbitrary string, you
> still need a CA that will do it for you, and that's typically not so
> trivial. CAs aren't meant for widespread end user adoption, really, whereas
> Persona is.
>
You can self sign X.509 certificates quite easily (e.g. one click via
<KEYGEN>), then rely on a decentralized web of trust to remove browser
warnings. A few people are working on this.
>
> I don't think Persona is any more or less centralised than other PKIs,
> really, just easier to use. Ultimately the string you're verifying is a
> user at host pair, so the host is centralised via DNS and to verify the
> assertions it vends, you must use SSL to connect to it, so under the hood
> the regular SSL PKI is still there.
>
>
>
It is easier to use, that's a great plus. But convenience is often a trade
off with security.
I dont user user at host, I use my home page because it's easy to dereference
and get a public key. Email is hard to dereference.
Yes, there is a reliance on DNS, which Tim calls the 'Achilles heel' of the
web, but it's held up quite well so far (fortunately for us).
Mozilla also have a master key to most email accounts, so if anyone got
access to that they could impersonate the vast majority of users that have
not opted in. I would not use persona for financial stuff, but if I made a
casual app with non sensitive information it would be one of the top
choices, imho
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Melvin Carvalho [ARCHIVE] /
npub1uv…saxrt
2023-06-07 15:05:45
in reply to nevent1q…2wr0
Author Public Key
npub1uvtfvcegcn9kds68r8he57emc480vqtx8t22kpsctxgjxae44gvsksaxrtPublished at
2023-06-07 15:05:45Event JSON
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"created_at": 1686150345,
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2013-08-09\n📝 Original message:On 9 August 2013 14:08, Mike Hearn \u003cmike at plan99.net\u003e wrote:\n\n\u003e Bitcoin sought to reduce dependence on trusted third parties, where as,\n\u003e\u003e persona is increasing the reach of trusted third parties. The keys and\n\u003e\u003e passwords are stored on mozilla's servers, sometimes on your email\n\u003e\u003e providers. Persona, is however, a progression and will hopefully improve\n\u003e\u003e its security and decentralization as it goes along.\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e When Persona is supported by all the key players in a transaction Mozilla\n\u003e doesn't get anything, do they? You can easily run your own IDP on a\n\u003e personal server if you're the kind of person who likes to do that, then run\n\u003e Firefox so you have a native implementation and the Mozilla servers aren't\n\u003e involved. The keys never leave your computers.\n\u003e\n\nYou'd need to run your own email server and/or change email address, which\nis not in the reach of the average user, and maybe not even of some\nbusinesses.\n\n\n\u003e\n\u003e Whilst X.509 certs can indeed be issued for any arbitrary string, you\n\u003e still need a CA that will do it for you, and that's typically not so\n\u003e trivial. CAs aren't meant for widespread end user adoption, really, whereas\n\u003e Persona is.\n\u003e\n\nYou can self sign X.509 certificates quite easily (e.g. one click via\n\u003cKEYGEN\u003e), then rely on a decentralized web of trust to remove browser\nwarnings. A few people are working on this.\n\n\n\u003e\n\u003e I don't think Persona is any more or less centralised than other PKIs,\n\u003e really, just easier to use. Ultimately the string you're verifying is a\n\u003e user at host pair, so the host is centralised via DNS and to verify the\n\u003e assertions it vends, you must use SSL to connect to it, so under the hood\n\u003e the regular SSL PKI is still there.\n\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e\nIt is easier to use, that's a great plus. But convenience is often a trade\noff with security.\n\nI dont user user at host, I use my home page because it's easy to dereference\nand get a public key. Email is hard to dereference.\n\nYes, there is a reliance on DNS, which Tim calls the 'Achilles heel' of the\nweb, but it's held up quite well so far (fortunately for us).\n\nMozilla also have a master key to most email accounts, so if anyone got\naccess to that they could impersonate the vast majority of users that have\nnot opted in. I would not use persona for financial stuff, but if I made a\ncasual app with non sensitive information it would be one of the top\nchoices, imho\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20130809/45364f00/attachment.html\u003e",
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