Mozilla 也在考慮對 Certificate Transparency 的掌握度

由於 Firefox 要支援 Certificate Transparency 的緣故,在「Mozilla CT Policy」這邊 Mozilla 在討論要建立自己的 CT policy 以及自己的架構:

CT is coming to Firefox. As part of that, Mozilla needs to have a set of CT policies surrounding how that will work. Like our root inclusion program, we intend to run our CT log inclusion program in an open and transparent fashion, such that the Internet community can see how it works and how decisions are made.

這樣就有個開頭了...

Go 上面的白箱安全性檢查

HP 的 open source 專案「Go AST Scanner」,分析 Go 的原始程式碼拉出 AST 進行分析 (Static program analysis),再找出可能的安全性問題。

雖然是 alpha 階段,但看起來是個好東西啊... 至少寫的太誇張的 SQL injection 可以掃出來。

印度對軟體專利的限制

印度對軟體專利加以限制:「No patent if invention lies only in computer program, says Indian Patent Office」,新的規定規範了如果是程式內所跑出來的創新 (invention),那麼就不可以被專利化:

The new guideline says that if the contribution of the invention lies only in computer program, the examiner should deny the patent claim.

基於程式本身不可專利,那麼完全由程式所產生出來的創新也不應該有專利權:

"The computer program in itself is never patentable. If the contribution lies solely in the computer program, deny the claim. If the contribution lies in both the computer program as well as hardware, proceed to other steps of patentability," it added.

把家裡的機器換上 Let's Encrypt 的 SSL certificate

依照「Beta Program Announcements」這邊的指示去填單申請 Let's Encrypt 的 SSL certificate (先幫 home.gslin.org 申請),等了好幾天,在剛剛收到信就弄了弄,還蠻順利就設好了。

可以看到 Let's Encrypt Authority X1DST Root CA X3 簽名的情況,而後者已經被大多數瀏覽器所確認了:

首先是先把 letsencrypt client 拉下來:

$ git clone https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt

接著執行認證:

$ cd letsencrypt
$ ./letsencrypt-auto --agree-dev-preview --server https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/directory certonly

執行時會先建立環境 (由於需要寫到 /etc/letsencrypt 裡面,會需要 root 或 sudo 權限)。

接下來會跳出一些畫面讓你設定,包括 hostname 以及聯絡資訊,再來就是認證的方式 (我是跳出使用 apache 或是 standalone web server),由於我的 port 443 已經被 apache 吃掉,所以需要用 apache。

最後認證成功會出現:

IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/home.gslin.org/fullchain.pem. Your cert will
   expire on 2016-02-02. To obtain a new version of the certificate in
   the future, simply run Let's Encrypt again.

有效期限 90 days,雖然裡面是講 fullchain.pem,但其實每個檔案都有拆開放,看一下 /etc/letsencrypt/live/home.gslin.org/ 路徑裡的檔案,設定對應的 cert/chain/key 應該還是比較習慣的作法。

官方目前的建議是 60 days 重新 renew 一次,也許可以設成 cron,每兩個月自動更新一次 (並且 reload apache)。

Let's Encrypt 的 Limited Beta

Let's Encrypt 在拿到 IdenTrust 提供的 cross sign (參考「Let's Encrypt 正式出發」) 後所啟動的計畫:「Beta Program Announcements」。

要先透過 Google Forms 填單等待,等通過後要指定 production server 才會發出來。

要注意的是,Let's Encrypt 發出來的 SSL certificate 會比較短,只有 90 天有效,設計上是依靠自動機制在更新,所以理論上不會有問題:

Certificates from Let's Encrypt are valid for 90 days. We recommend renewing them every 60 days to provide a nice margin of error. As a beta participant, you should be prepared to manually renew your certificates at that time. As we get closer to General Availability, we hope to have automatic renewal tested and working on more platforms, but for now, please play it safe and keep track.

再來是有註冊限制,分成 Registrations/IP address 與 Certificates/Domain 兩個限制:

There are two rate limits in play: Registrations/IP address, and Certificates/Domain.

前者的限制是每天 10 次:

Registrations/IP address limits the number of registrations you can make in a given day; currently 10. This means you should avoid deleting the /etc/letsencrypt/accounts folder, or you may not be able to re-register.

後者的限制是每個 domain 只給 4 個 certificate:

Certificates/Domain you could run into through repeated re-issuance. This limit measures certificates issued for a given combination of Top Level Domain + Domain. This means if you issue certificates for the following domains, at the end you would have what we consider 4 certificates for the domain example.com.

拿來測試應該是夠用。