IceCat 60 certificate validation fails when using system NSS

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3 participants

Maxim Cournoyer
Mark H Weaver
Mike Gerwitz

Owner: unassigned

Submitted by: Mike Gerwitz

Severity: normal

Mike Gerwitz wrote on 25 Sep 2018 06:22

IceCat 60 showing sites as "insecure" despite using HTTPS

Recipients:(address . bug-guix@gnu.org)

Message-ID:87k1nadx4v.fsf@gnu.org

I don't know if this is a problem specific to Guix or upstream; I can
give IceCat a try in a Debian VM tomorrow.  But I want to make others
aware of the problem in the meantime:

Even if sites are using HTTPS, IceCat is still saying "This connection
is insecure" if you click on the "i" icon in the URL bar.  This seems to
be a problem with every HTTPS site I visit.

On the "Security" tab of the "Page Info" dialog, under "Technical
Details", no certificate information is listed; it simply says
"Connection Not Encrypted".  That's clearly not true, otherwise the page
would fail to load.  I've tried with sites that use HSTS and don't even
support plaintext connections (e.g. my own)---the pages load just fine.

I haven't played around with sites with expired certificates or anything
yet.  But if IceCat is not reporting security status correctly, then
users may be at risk, so be careful in the meantime!

-- 
Mike Gerwitz
Free Software Hacker+Activist | GNU Maintainer & Volunteer
GPG: D6E9 B930 028A 6C38 F43B  2388 FEF6 3574 5E6F 6D05
https://mikegerwitz.com

Mark H Weaver wrote on 26 Sep 2018 00:01

Recipients:(name . Mike Gerwitz)(address . mtg@gnu.org)(address . 32833@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:87o9clck40.fsf@netris.org

severity 32833 critical

thanks

Hi Mike,

Mike Gerwitz <mtg@gnu.org> writes:

Toggle quote (14 lines)> Even if sites are using HTTPS, IceCat is still saying "This connection
> is insecure" if you click on the "i" icon in the URL bar.  This seems to
> be a problem with every HTTPS site I visit.
>
> On the "Security" tab of the "Page Info" dialog, under "Technical
> Details", no certificate information is listed; it simply says
> "Connection Not Encrypted".  That's clearly not true, otherwise the page
> would fail to load.  I've tried with sites that use HSTS and don't even
> support plaintext connections (e.g. my own)---the pages load just fine.
>
> I haven't played around with sites with expired certificates or anything
> yet.  But if IceCat is not reporting security status correctly, then
> users may be at risk, so be careful in the meantime!

Thanks for reporting this. I see the same problem, which is a surprise.

I would have expected some notification that something went wrong, but I

don't remember any.

Given the severity of this issue, we should prioritize deploying a

working fix ASAP, even if it's an ugly hack or workaround.

To begin, I'm currently building IceCat using the bundled NSPR and NSS,

to see if that helps. If that fails, I'll look more closely at IceCat's

customizations to the default "about:config" settings. The 'strace'

output might also have some clues.

I would welcome others to make their own efforts to find a fix for this

issue, or to share their ideas.

Toggle quote (3 lines)

> I don't know if this is a problem specific to Guix or upstream; I can

> give IceCat a try in a Debian VM tomorrow.

Please do. It would be _very_ helpful to know if this problem is

Guix-specific.

Thanks,

Mark

Mark H Weaver wrote on 26 Sep 2018 02:16

Recipients:(name . Mike Gerwitz)(address . mtg@gnu.org)(address . 32833@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:87a7o5cdv3.fsf@netris.org

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:

Toggle quote (3 lines)

> To begin, I'm currently building IceCat using the bundled NSPR and NSS,

> to see if that helps.

Using the bundled NSPR and NSS works around the problem for me. I just

pushed this change in commit 6d328879378fac95240005233331f596fb5c68ed on

'master'. See also the related, immediately preceding commits

257e3247910610fe24ae1b86f38e85552d53e48c and

94e96f7f68c3b9053fdb5dee5b0ab614163aaa08.

I'm keeping this bug report open, since it would be good to find a

better fix which avoids using the bundled libraries.

Mark

Mike Gerwitz wrote on 26 Sep 2018 02:30

Recipients:(name . Mark H Weaver)(address . mhw@netris.org)(address . 32833@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:87tvmdcd6m.fsf@gnu.org

On Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 20:16:16 -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:

Toggle quote (10 lines)> Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:
>> To begin, I'm currently building IceCat using the bundled NSPR and NSS,
>> to see if that helps.
>
> Using the bundled NSPR and NSS works around the problem for me.  I just
> pushed this change in commit 6d328879378fac95240005233331f596fb5c68ed on
> 'master'.  See also the related, immediately preceding commits
> 257e3247910610fe24ae1b86f38e85552d53e48c and
> 94e96f7f68c3b9053fdb5dee5b0ab614163aaa08.

Great!

Toggle quote (3 lines)

> I'm keeping this bug report open, since it would be good to find a

> better fix which avoids using the bundled libraries.

I wish I knew enough to suggest a better solution.

It's a little late now, but I just tested the IceCat binary on a Debian

machine and HTTPS works as expected.

Thanks again for your work on this. Maybe I'll let IceCat build

overnight so I can give it a try tomorrow (still on my X200).

Mike Gerwitz

Mike Gerwitz wrote on 26 Sep 2018 06:55

Recipients:(name . Mark H Weaver)(address . mhw@netris.org)(address . 32833@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:87bm8kdfis.fsf@gnu.org

On Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 20:30:57 -0400, Mike Gerwitz wrote:

Toggle quote (3 lines)

> Thanks again for your work on this. Maybe I'll let IceCat build

> overnight so I can give it a try tomorrow (still on my X200).

LGTM.

Mike Gerwitz

Mark H Weaver wrote on 27 Sep 2018 00:49

(no subject)

Recipients:(address . control@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:87h8ibho23.fsf@netris.org

retitle 32833 IceCat 60 certificate validation fails when using system NSS
severity 32833 normal
thanks

Maxim Cournoyer wrote on 29 Aug 2023 05:40

Re: bug#32833: IceCat 60 certificate validation fails when using system NSS

Recipients:(name . Mike Gerwitz)(address . mtg@gnu.org)

Message-ID:874jkiect4.fsf_-_@gmail.com

Hello,

Mike Gerwitz <mtg@gnu.org> writes:

Toggle quote (24 lines)> On Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 20:16:16 -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
>> Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:
>>> To begin, I'm currently building IceCat using the bundled NSPR and NSS,
>>> to see if that helps.
>>
>> Using the bundled NSPR and NSS works around the problem for me.  I just
>> pushed this change in commit 6d328879378fac95240005233331f596fb5c68ed on
>> 'master'.  See also the related, immediately preceding commits
>> 257e3247910610fe24ae1b86f38e85552d53e48c and
>> 94e96f7f68c3b9053fdb5dee5b0ab614163aaa08.
>
> Great!
>
>> I'm keeping this bug report open, since it would be good to find a
>> better fix which avoids using the bundled libraries.
>
> I wish I knew enough to suggest a better solution.
>
> It's a little late now, but I just tested the IceCat binary on a Debian
> machine and HTTPS works as expected.
>
> Thanks again for your work on this.  Maybe I'll let IceCat build
> overnight so I can give it a try tomorrow (still on my X200).

I'm closing this issue, since we're now using the Guix provided nss and
nspr packages for building IceCat since a while, and there doesn't
appear to be an issue with doing so.

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim

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