alt Hacker NewsConflating transport-layer encryption with authenticity is the problem. The former should always be standard, the latter is unrelated and IMO needs a different mechanism.
Conflating transport-layer encryption with authenticity is the problem. The former should always be standard, the latter is unrelated and IMO needs a different mechanism.
Absent widespread adoption of DNSSEC, which has just not happened at all, I don't see any alternative.
The authentication must be done before the encryption parameters are negotiated, in order to protect against man-in-the-middle attacks. There must be some continuity between the two as well, since the authenticated party (both parties can be authenticated, but only one has to be) must digitally sign its parameters.
Any competing authentication scheme would therefore have to operate at a lower layer with even more fundamental infrastructure, and the only thing we've really got that fits the bill is DNS.
EDIT: A standard exists for this already, it's called DANE, though it has very little support: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS-based_Authentication_of_Na...