Privacy

32456 readers

692 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

the encryption keys, why can't the government just sneak on them? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

36 comments fedilink hide all child comments

disclaimer: I'm just asking to get understanding of the theory behind network traffic encryption, I know this doesn't happen irl most likely.

Let's take https connection for example. I like watching revolutionary things on youtube and do not wish for authorities to know what I am watching, we accept here for the sake of showcase that google won't sell my watch history if asked (LMAO what am I even saying?).
So if I'm not mistaken since youtube has https implemented, our communication is encrypted, the keys are shared only between me and youtube. But when Youtube shares the key with me/my client the first time, is that also encrypted? Wouldn't the same question keep getting answered until there is something unencrypted? I know this is a bit too much unlikely, but if ISP automated the process of gathering keys and decrypting web traffic for a certain site with them for all users, would that work for them?
I'm taking https here as an example, while I have the same question for like VPN.

EDIT: Thank you everybody. I am not a member of this community, but every comment was a golden experience to read!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I think you're asking if it's possible for your government to be a man-in-the-middle? Depending on which government you live under, the answer is likely no but more importantly the answer will always be; it's not worth their effort to find out what you're watching.

YouTube's public key is signed by a certificate authority whose public key (root) is likely installed on your device from the factory. When you connect to YouTube, they send you a certificate chain which your browser will verify against that known root. In effect, it's information both you and YouTube already share and can't be tampered with over the wire.

Technically, those signatures can be forged by a well resourced adversary (i.e. a government) with access to the certificate authority through subversion, coercion, etc. At the same time, it's probably easier to subvert or coerce you or YouTube to reveal what you watch.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

The situation is just an example, I'm not actually planning a revolution. just for demonstration purpose