To better understand the stupidity in leaving the power with the CI for SSL/TLS :<p><pre><code> $ gpg --gen-revoke $(whoami)@$(hostname -f)
gpg (GnuPG) 2.0.22; Copyright (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
How would you like to pay us?
(1) Mastercard
(2) VISA
(3) Other
Your selection?
</code></pre>
Also, a dark cynical part of me wants to ask exactly what the business model behind "free" SSL certs is? You're not paying them, someone else is?
Classic Big Lebowski moment: You're not wrong, you're just an asshole. Their stance is entirely correct. The customer used a file that StartCom provided in software that turns out to have had a security flaw. That's neither StartCom's problem nor liability. They didn't say "use this certificate with anything other than OpenSSL; you'll be sorry if you use OpenSSL," nor could they have foreseen it.<p>On the other hand, showing a cold unwillingness to help when doing so is by far the above-and-beyond response doesn't engender good customer loyalty. It's also how StartCom operates. This is the same cert authority that insisted that I send them a full, unredacted copy of a mobile telephone bill with every "family plan" member's full call, SMS, and data history in order to call me. Otherwise, they could only "verify" me by sending a snail mail letter from Israel to South America (where I lived at the time). Independently-linked, outside verification databases operated by local government entities weren't sufficient.<p>At least they're consistent with their "rules are rules" processes.
Why is the power of revocations in cert issuer's hands? As long as the private key is private, I don't see how a malicious entity could add your private key to the revocation list.<p>In fact, a place in the revocation list should be reserved every time a cert is issued, possibly with a mechanism to trigger it with the private key. For example, if I send a message encrypted/signed with my private key to the revocation authority, they can decrypt/verify it with my public key, which they received when the CA issued my cert.
Mozilla should just spin-off their own CA, pricing the service fairly as a non-profit. It's not like they aren't the gatekeepers anyway.<p>Users don't trust Verisign or StartSSL, they trust whoever Mozilla, Microsoft or Google trust. Stop accepting new CAs in to the browser whitelist, start a CA for the public good with a true open source, full disclosure mentality. Why not?
I've used these guys in the past and quite like them, but yeah, this is poor PR and I hope they get pulled for not paying attention to, you know, the overall security of the trust product they're selling. I don't want lock-in on my SSL cert but it's effectively a contract if I have to pay a fee to break it and the SSL padlock on my domain is held hostage if I don't. Maybe someone should open a bug report on Bugzilla...
The author is running a business on the domains he's talking about (a crowdfunding site that takes a 3% fee [1]) so he should just regard it as an unplanned business expense and pay up if he feels it's so important for his certs to be revoked.<p>Not that revocation will have much practical effect on the unlikely event of his keys having been compromised, and an attacker considering his website important enough to MITM - and having the means to do so to a sufficiently large audience to make it worthwhile. Seems like a lot of fuss over nothing much, in this case.<p>EDIT: Also just to note that the private key he has shown on this website was compromised solely by him putting it there, and not extracted via Heartbleed. Indeed, the certificate was created a few days after the vulnerability was reported and fixed. Makes this strange cry for attention even more absurd.<p>[1] <a href="https://freedomsponsors.org/faq#How%20do%20payments%20work" rel="nofollow">https://freedomsponsors.org/faq#How%20do%20payments%20work</a>?
So now it's official. They got the evidence that the certificate is compromised yet they refuse to take action. If that's not violation of CA policy I don't know what is.
I never understood why people use StartSSL. Their service is horrible. The interface is far beyond ugly. You could get a SSL certificate in a nice and easy way for 4,99$ at <a href="http://www.ssls.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ssls.com/</a>. (They reselling from different CAs. They cheapest one is currently PositiveSSL)
Personally, I'd just send a patch to my favorite browser removing their certificate from the trust chain, and then send StartSSL an email with a link to that. Although I doubt anyone will merge your change, it sends a cynical message about how their entire business lives and dies at the whims of people with commit access to the list of trusted CAs.
> Starcom's position is very firm and clear (and horrible, and against the security of the internet). [...] I won't be using their service again.<p>Funny the author didn't see it that way when he started using their service.
Let's admit StartSSL will revoke you. Then what ? Chrome will still don't check revoked certs. Mac OS X neither (and Safari). Only Firefox will...