Pluralistic: Too big to care (04 Apr 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.net

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/14100831

"No, seriously. All those things Google couldn’t find anymore? Top of the search pile. Queries that generated pages of spam in Google results? Fucking pristine on Kagi – the right answers, over and ov

  • foggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    281·
    7 months ago

    Google stopped indexing all websites without SSL certificates in July 2018.

    For example, darklyrics.com is a website I and many others grew up using as a resource to understanding lyrics. They’ve stubbornly not gotten an SSL because they transact 0 data beyond band name searches. However, without an SSL, they do not show up in Google search results.

    This is one of literally millions of examples. Some more reasonable than others, but it still was a massive blow to the efficacy of their search.

    • SkyNTP@lemmy.mlEnglish
      35·
      7 months ago

      They’ve stubbornly not gotten an SSL because they transact 0 data beyond band name searches.

      Even if sites do not store user account data, such as passwords, ALL websites, and I mean ALL, handle user data, because merely accessing pages (urls) is user data.

      Stubbornness is not a good reason not to setup SSL. Encryption should always be on, all the time, for everything.

      • Bogasse@lemmy.mlEnglish
        13·
        7 months ago

        And it’s not only about user data, it would also expose the website to content spoofing in public wifi, which would for example allow the attacker to inject fishing content in the website.

        SSL encrypts the data you’re sending but it also ensures that you’re communicating only with who you think you are. Without SSL you can’t be confident about any of that.

        • pixxelkick@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          7 months ago

          If a website has literally no login system, there’s nothing to phish.

          There is honestly no reason to use SSL on a static website that has no login system and just displays some content.

          IE a static blog or etc, where the only content on the website is just “look at this stuff, okay thank you!”

          • Bogasse@lemmy.mlEnglish
            1·
            7 months ago

            That’s still my point, for example you could inject your own login system “create an account to keep track of your favorite artists, or some new shiny feature”. For there you can get people’s personal information, potentially a password they use on other services.

            An URL is something the general public will trust, if the content can be messed with you repurpose the website’s reputation. I took phishing as an example but even my not-so-creative and non-expert brain can think of other things : asking for donations, propaganda, advertising, censorship, …

      • foggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        111·
        7 months ago

        Free certificates expose your subdomains. It’s not more secure if you don’t transact data in a meaningful way such as the example I provided.

        I don’t mean to insinuate that the example I provided is the majority of cases, and in the majority of cases, I do support sites with SSLs being indexed higher than websites without them, but I think the interstitial this website is not secure with the requirement of the advanced click followed by The continue anywaysclick…

        Idk

        Especially in 2018. Like, when we look at it from today’s perspective, it’s very easy to agree. And I do agree. But in 2018, it was not this way. Anyone who was a web developer with a bunch of clients, such as myself, was all the sudden in a very interesting hot seat. Not only did I need to try to upsell my clients, but I needed to convince them that not doing so was quite literally at their peril. It was difficult. And certain cases, it was impossible.

          • foggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
            13·
            7 months ago

            Not necessarily. Let’s say you’re a known contributor to a closed source project. You don’t want people knowing you have a locally hosted gitlab instance at gitlab.mydomain.com, for example.

            • ReveredOxygen@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              41·
              7 months ago

              If that’s the case, you shouldn’t have one on your domain. If someone wants to know your subdomains, they can still brute force them

        • unautrenomEnglish
          3·
          7 months ago

          Expose your subdomains as in having all of them bundled into one certificate?

          AFAIK, you absolutely can request different certs for each subdomain (in fact, that’s what I’ve been doing for a while).

          • foggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
            34·
            7 months ago

            No, as in they are public record.

            If you use a wildcard let’s encrypt SSL to encrypt www.mydomain.com and VPS.mydomain.com and secret.mydomain.com and allmyporn.mydomain.com, and Plex.mydomain.com, and gitlab.mydomain.com

            Then it is public record that mydomain.com has associated with it the CNAMES “www” “VPS” “secret” “allmyporn” “Plex” and “gitlab”.

            It can be looked up by anyone here. Just type in “%.yourdomain”

            That is to say if you use a wildcard letsencrypt SSL on all your subdomains for you self hosting project, you’re more exposed than want to be.

            • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
              32·
              7 months ago

              No it’s not. I have several wildcards. Your tool doesn’t show any of the subdomains i have then used on. Go hit %.saik0.com and show me where lemmy.saik0.com shows up. I’ll wait.

                • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
                  73·
                  7 months ago

                  Bro check again… This time actually follow instructions.

                  Search for LEMMY.SAIK0.COM… Notice it’s not there even though my instance clearly exists and has an SSL cert.

                  What you’re seeing is certs from over a year ago. You’re seeing domains I registered specifically. eg… not ones I’ve associated with a wildcard.

                  Next time make sure you’re actually right before you act so confident.

                  Here’s a list of subdomains that are under a wildcard SSL cert… That will not show up in that list since they were never registered for their own cert and only EVER operated under the wildcard one.

                  convert.saik0.com
                  esign.saik0.com
                  lemmy.saik0.com
                  wordgame.saik0.com
                  yt.saik0.com

                  And there’s plenty more I could point out. But if you follow instructions and actually search, you’ll see that those do exist as accessible subdomains and do not show up in the crt.sh tool.

                  Edit: LMFAO so you downvoted me… checked my shit and realized that you’re wrong. Deleted your message and kept your downvote in place.

                  Edit2: For those coming after the fact and maybe not liking my initial tone at the top there. I mirrored the tone they posted in.

        • Bogasse@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          7 months ago

          While I agree the issue you raise does make sense in some situations, it derivates from the initial concern : if you don’t want your domain listed in a DNS record you certainly don’t want it to be indexed by a search engine :p