[tor-talk] Giving Hidden Services some love

[Peter Tonoli]

On 4/01/2015 3:42 pm, Jesse B. Crawford wrote:
> What I mean is that the situations where DNS is compromised (malicious
> DNS server, malicious local network operator, malicious third party
> pulling a trick on the local network, etc...), while completely possible
> and important to protect against, are far less common out there in the
> wild than phishers using similar-but-wrong domains (we've probably all
> seen a usbank.com.abunchofhexcharacters.numbers.cz before).
> 
> I realized that I missed something earlier. When I refer to SSL
> certificates fixing this problem, I am referring to extended validation
> (EV) certificates that validate legal entity, not to the various cheaper
> certificates that only validate domain.

EV certificates don't fix any problem. The validation of a 'legal
entity' is purely due to an agreed policy. A rogue, compromised, or
alternate CA could release certificates with EV fields that don't
'rigorously' validate the organisation that applies for the certificate.

> EV certificates tie a service to a real-world entity, typically by the
> CA validating organizational documents (articles of incorporation,
> charter, etc) and validating that the person who submitted the request
> is an authorized agent of the organization. The certificates then
> include as part of the principal not only the domain name of the host
> but also the legal name of the operator.

Which contradicts with the point of hidden services in the first place,
that neither party knows the others identity [1].

[1] https://www.torproject.org/docs/hidden-services.html.en