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by ForHackernews 519 days ago
>CA trust should be handled at the OS vendor level.

Who's the "vendor" for Linux? IBM?

The outcome of this idea is Google & Microsoft can MITM all internet traffic.

2 comments

> Who's the "vendor" for Linux? IBM?

There are countless companies and groups (but only a handful that serve the vast majority of users) releasing a version of Linux bundled with a GNU userland and other open source niceties, all designed to work together as a system. These are colloquially called "Linux distributions".

Linux distros universally use the Mozilla root store. So if a CA told Mozilla "to go pound sand" as suggested by likeabatterycar, the CA would end up distrusted not only by the "2.5%" of browser users, but by every Linux server.
> The outcome of this idea is Google & Microsoft can MITM all internet traffic.

Google, MS, and Apple already handle their own CA trust. So this conspiracy theory would already be true.

Wait, is it a "conspiracy theory" or is it true? Are you claiming both? I'm aware that Google, Apple, Microsoft etc. could already MITM traffic to Chrome/Safari/Edge browsers if they were so determined.