[j1elo]

Try running anything more complicated than a plain and basic web server! See what happens if you attempt to serve something that browsers deem to require a mandatory "Secure Context", so they will reject running it when using HTTP.

For example, you won't be able to run internal videocalls (no access to webcams!), or a web page able to scan QR codes.

Here's the full list:

* https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Security/Secure...

A true hassle for internal testing between hosts, to be honest. I just cannot run an in-development video app on my PC and connect from a phone or laptop to do some testing, without first worrying about certs at a point in development where they are superfluous and a loss of time.

[akira2501]

localhost is a secure context. so.. presumably we're just waiting for .internal to be added to the white list.

[JonathonW]

Unlikely. Localhost can be a secure context because localhost traffic doesn't leave your local machine; .internal names have no guarantees about where they go (not inconceivable that some particularly "creative" admin might have .internal names that resolve to something on the public internet).

[Wicher]

One can resolve "localhost" (even via an upstream resolver) to an arbitrary IP address. At least on my Linux system "localhost" only seems to be specially treated by systemd-resolved (with a cursory attempt I didn't succeed in getting it to use an upstream resolver for it).

So it's not a rock-hard guarantee that traffic to localhost never leaves your system. It would be unconventional and uncommon for it to, though, except for the likes of us who like to ssh-tunnel all kinds of things on our loopback interfaces :-)

The sweet spot of security vs convenience, in the case of browsers and awarding "secure origin status" for .internal, could perhaps be on a dynamic case by case basis at connect time:

- check if it's using a self-signed cert - offer TOFU procedure if so - if not, verify as usual

Maaaaybe check whether the connection is to an RFC1918 private range address as well. Maybe. It would break proxying and tunneling. But perhaps that'd be a good thing.

This would just be for browsers, for the single purpose of enabling things like serviceworkers and other "secure origin"-only features, on this new .internal domain.

[JonathonW]

> One can resolve "localhost" (even via an upstream resolver) to an arbitrary IP address. At least on my Linux system "localhost" only seems to be specially treated by systemd-resolved (with a cursory attempt I didn't succeed in getting it to use an upstream resolver for it).

The secure context spec [1] addresses this-- localhost should only be considered potentially trustworthy if the agent complies with specific name resolution rules to guarantee that it never resolves to anything except the host's loopback interface.

[1] https://w3c.github.io/webappsec-secure-contexts/#localhost

[im3w1l]

localhost is pretty special in that it's like the only domain typically defined in a default /etc/hosts.

[thayne]

No, you can't. Besides the /etc/hosts point mentioned in the sibling, localhost is often hard-coded to use 127.0.0.1 without doing an actual DNS lookup.

[miah_]

Years back I ran into a issue at work because somebody named their computer "localhost" on a network with automatic DNS registration. Because of DNS search path configuration it would resolve. So, "localhost" ended up resolving to something other than an address on 127.0.0.0/8! It was a fun discovery and fixed soon after I reported it.

[Too]

No. The concept of a DMZ died decades ago. You could still be MITM within your company intranet. Any system designed these days should follow zero-trust principles.

[tsimionescu]

Sure, but people still need to test things, and HTTPS greatly complicates things. Browsers' refusal to make it poasible to run anything unencrypted when you know what you're doing is extremely annoying, and has caused significant losses of productivity throughout the industry.

If they're so worried about users getting duped to activate the insecure mode, they could at least make it a compiler option and provide an entirely separate download in a separate place.

Also, don't get me started on HSTS and HSTS preloading making it impossible to inspect your own traffic with entities like Google. It's shameful that Firefox is even more strict about this idiocy than Chrome.

[freedomben]

Indeed. Nothing enrages me more as a user when my browser refuses to load a page and doesn't give me any way to override it.

Whose computer is this? I guess the machine I purchased doesn't belong to me, but instead belongs to the developer of the browser, who has absolutely no idea what I'm trying to do, what my background is and qualifications and what my needs are? It seems absurd to give that person the ultimate say over me on my system, especially if they're going to give me some BS about protecting me from myself for my own good or something like that. Yet, that is clearly the direction things are headed.

[the8472]

To inspect your own traffic you can use SSLKEYLOGFILE and then load it into wireshark.

[tsimionescu]

Most apps don't support SSLKEYLOGFILE. OpenSSL, the most popular TLS library, doesn't support it.

[haradion]

OpenSSL does provide a callback mechanism to allow for key logging, but the application does have to opt in. IIRC, at least Curl does support it by default.

[bigstrat2003]

> The concept of a DMZ died decades ago.

That is very much not true. Most corporate networks I've ever been on trust the internal network. Whether or not you think they should, they do.

[TeMPOraL]

Doesn't matter for mixed content, like e.g. when you run a client-side only app that happens to be loaded from a public domain over HTTPS, and want it to call out to an API endpoint running locally. HTTP won't fly. And good luck reverse-proxying it without a public CA cert either.