This is a GSA initiative, not an 18F initiative. But 18F has a recent post detailing executive branch progress on HTTPS that may also be relevant:
https://18f.gsa.gov/2017/01/04/tracking-the-us-governments-p...
And NIST has a dashboard of adoption: https://usgv6-deploymon.antd.nist.gov/cgi-bin/generate-gov
Disclaimer: Not USDS/18F, just tech professional.
In any case, .gov won't add much to the load -- right now there are all of 5,500 .gov domains, and the rate of adding/removal is on the order of dozens every month at most.
Is that just domains from which web content is hosted, or just second level domains regardless of whether web content is hosted? Because I can't imagine that there are only 5,500 total .gov domains.
The ironic thing is we're reinventing the CA system, only now each browser is its own authority, exactly the problem the CA system was trying to solve.
Don't forget mobile and other platforms, where resources are more constrained.
If the operative word is "sent" and "all" the likelihood is zero, as I can assert I've never sent a private key to NSA, and I've made quite a few over the past few years.
That said, carlosdp makes a great point as to how one should behave. Even though not all private keys get shipped to NSA (can't make claims about other teams), the government is very public about other data sharing programs (see https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/privacy... for example).
Even though all government agencies must disclose these types of programs, they are so numerous and often so difficult to decipher, the only rational response is to assume everyone has everything or could have access in the future.
The only way to avoid this is to build zero-knowledge systems on the server side, something I hope you'll see more of in 2017.
That said, DHS runs an intrusion prevention system called EINSTEIN, whose mission is to protect all federal civilian computer networks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_(US-CERT_program)
Using EINSTEIN _is_ mandated by OMB, so if you're worried about the U.S. federal government snooping on your communications with the U.S. federal government, I don't know what to tell you.
I can vouch personally that at least one civilian department doesn't do this.
It's pretty hard to setup a system that would survive an powerful adversary who simply didn't know your passwords, have access to your safes, etc. But to then make that system hardened against a malicious insider with get-of-of-jail card?!
You could argue that since the Internet has become a global commercial network, the US should no longer have these special, exclusive TLDs. But switching over would be a ton of work, and there really aren't enough downsides to the US having these domains to justify a change.
It's worth noting that .fed.us exists, although hardly any government sites us it. State/city governments often use .[state].us domains since .gov was originally restricted to the federal government, but that restriction was lifted and it's common to see .gov used for state/local governments now as well.
It wasn't that long ago that I tried to log into a government site via my SSN, and discovered that the page didn't even permit HTTPS. I was displeased, to say the least; logging in wasn't exactly optional, so it seemed much worse than a business offering poor security.
Permitting HTTPS is obviously the first step, but security shouldn't be limited to people with the expertise to seek it out. I'm really glad to see that something as inescapable as the .gov domain will be pursuing security-by-default.
If I do see it again, is there anything like a clearinghouse for this sort of complaint?
While that's probably valid in the main, is that always true? FEMA/NOAA spring to mind. As does IRS guidance, especially since those documents should have digital signatures themselves for an additional layer of integrity.
Was this idea part of the discussion?
These issues were already worked through for the executive branch as part of the White House HTTPS policy published in June 2015:
Some rationale for "Why everything?" can be found here:
https://https.cio.gov/everything/
Personally, I'd say that plain HTTP is insecure enough, and today's internet is hostile enough, that plain HTTP provides a very weak form of "availability". It's on site operators to ensure that when their services and information is available, that it's available in a manner that doesn't subject the user to risk.
I assume you know, but in case you don't, hostnames are typically outside the envelope for HTTPS. So this hypothetical GET already leaks that it's going to alerts.fema.gov. Then realize that the HTTPS cipher suites positively identified the HTTPS library being used, and packet details + origin IP leak the OS.
Edit: I'll even do you one better. Have the policy be HTTPS everywhere and HSTS everywhere but alerts.fema.gov
You're saying you'd prefer for e.g. NOAA to not be able to issue tornado warnings in order to ensure nobody can fake a tornado warning.
Web browsers enforce preloading by considering each domain as having HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) set, and so it gets the strict treatment: only https:// connections, and no clicking through certificate warnings.
Some more detail on all this here: https://https.cio.gov/hsts/
Certainly one of the biggest headaches of the classic approach is forgetting to renew your certificate on time, a situation which Let's Encrypt effectively avoids.
> GSA provides extensive guidance to agencies on HTTPS deployment at https.cio.gov, and encourages .gov domain owners to obtain low cost or free certificates, trusted by the general public. As a general matter, more expensive certificates do not offer more security value to service owners, and automatic deployment of free certificates can significantly improve service owners’ security posture.
This is also repeated here:
https://https.cio.gov/certificates/#what-kind-of-certificate...
Two GSA programs automate Let's Encrypt to deploy certificates on demand:
* https://www.digitalgov.gov/2016/09/07/lets-encrypt-those-cna...
* https://cloud.gov/docs/apps/custom-domains/#managed-service-...
There's also a USG amendment to the Let's Encrypt Terms of Service that GSA negotiated with them to make it easier for agencies to use it:
https://letsencrypt.org/documents/LE-US-State-Local-SA-Amend...
My email is in my profile :)
