Posted by piskov 19 hours ago
That said, pretty sure this is stems from the insane US legal requirement to not export SSL technology to enemy countries. I'm sure some of y'all are old enough to remember when web browsers came in "international friendly" versions that supported 40 bit encryption, or "fancy secure" versions with 128 bit encryption.
Russian quasi-government structures are spending quadrillion of rubles on a TSPU (censorship system) to spy on Russian residents, US ...helps them by making snooping on what is currently encrypted traffic possible by banning accessible encryption!
Because they're betraying their own goals, as stated in their About page: “It is a service run for the public’s benefit. [...] Anyone who owns a domain name can use Let’s Encrypt to obtain a trusted certificate at zero cost. [...] Let’s Encrypt is a joint effort to benefit the community, beyond the control of any one organization.” Now they own they are under the control of a political organization.
Here is the paragraph Let's Encrypt added to their Subscription Agreement on 2026-06-04:
> You are not a person or entity that is:
> (a) located in, organized under the laws of, or ordinarily resident in any country or territory that is the target of comprehensive U.S. sanctions;
> (b) a prohibited or restricted party under U.S. or other applicable sanctions and export control laws and regulations;
> or (c) owned or controlled by or acting on behalf of anyone described in (a) or (b).
> You agree to use Let’s Encrypt Certificates and any services provided by or on behalf of ISRG in compliance with applicable U.S. export control and sanctions laws and regulations.
> "Across 2018-2019, the RISC-V community has reflected on the geo-political landscape and we have heard concerns from around the world that investment in RISC-V must come with IP access continuity to ensure a long-term strategic investment. We first mentioned our intentions to move at the December 2018 summit. Incorporation in Switzerland has the effect of calming concerns of political disruption to the open collaboration model. RISC-V International does not maintain any commercial interest in products or services as a non-profit, membership organization. There have not been any export restrictions on RISC-V in the US and we have complied with all US laws. The move does not circumvent any existing restrictions, but rather alleviates uncertainty going forward.
> In March 2020, the RISC-V International Association was incorporated in Switzerland. Along with this, we shifted to a new, more inclusive membership structure. Members of RISC-V International have access to and participate in the development of the RISC-V ISA specification and extensions as well as related hardware and software. RISC-V has a Board of Directors composed of member representatives as well as a Technical Committee of work group leaders."
> RISC-V International has not incorporated in Switzerland based on any one country, company, government, or event. This move is reflective of community concern and managing strategic risk for our community investing in RISC-V for the next 50+ years.
> The IP contributed and produced by RISC-V International is held under industry and global standard licenses that are already open to leverage by any company regardless of jurisdiction. This licensing is a common open source approach to foster collaboration that is not tied to any geographic regulation. IP in the public domain has not been subject to export control.
Front matter:
- it is called a "Subscriber Agreement" and not anything that suggests that its scope is a single certificate
- it's a "contract [...] regarding Your [...] rights and duties relating to [...] Certificates" - plural
- "[the agreement] will remain in force during the entire period during which *any* of Your Certificates are valid" - plural
- "[by] requesting, accepting, or using *a* Let’s Encrypt Certificate" - pluralMaybe we should have solve the ISP snooping problem by making that illegal instead.
With all the problems with Web PKI, at least the bad actors are getting distrusted, and this provides a very strong enforcement on the rest. And Certificate Transparency makes sure the mis-issuance would be caught. It is not perfect by any means, but things are getting better.
With DANE (or other country-issued certificates), every government will absolutely double-issue certificates to police, secret service and friends of goverment, and no one will have any recourse. (In the past I'd say that only countries like Russia would do it.. but with today's climate, I am sure both US and many European countries will do that too)
Countries already have CA that issue certificates with more legal force than a handwritten signature. I can open a bank account, pay my taxes and sign up to all government services. But I can't use them for a webpage.
> With DANE (or other country-issued certificates)
DANE isn't a country-issued certificate. It's a scheme where you store your public keys on DNS records. Of course, now we have the issue that DNSSEC (signed DNS records) isn't widespread and the whole issue with DNS registries.
And things only gotten better since - we now have CT logs, and browsers require them, so any mis-issuance can be detected automatically, by any interested third party.
If we go to DANE, we lose this all. "Oops, our CT uploader process failed, we will fix Real Soon(tm) we promise" - and what are browsers going to do? Distrust the entire country?
[0] https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2011/09/02/diginotar-remov...
I didn’t realize the slapped their face on the pavement right after being acquired.
Note that phones already try to prevent you from using a certificate that you provide yourself.
I think the "digital tyranny" is a side effect, not the main goal. They're "mainly a means" to prevent certain kinds of MITM attacks.
What's gonna happen if I were to begin or continue using one letsencrypt certificate from ... Greenland? Cuba? The EU?
Has letsencrypt been served with a subpoena?
LWN has a good writeup on the audit situation as of 2014: https://lwn.net/Articles/590879/
It is more of an example of how the internet/software industry is too consolidated to the US, and thus other countries are too dependent on the US in those areas. If the internet infrastructure was well distributed, then people in sanction countries could simply get certificates issued by a different CA, and in some cases they can. However, this is complicated by the fact that the list of trusted CAs is dominated by US organizations (Google, Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft). If you want to reach western audience you must use certs from a CA approved by them.
Then I graduated in International Relations and understood that the hole is much deeper than that.
Now it's pretty obvious with all the shit that trump has been doing, but back then me and much of the people I know were oblivious to what US power really means.