On 2009-07-03 05:29 PDT, Ian G wrote:
> We desperately need some form of whitelisting in Firefox so that each site 
> always gets presented the same cert.  If browsers can remember cookies 
> and username/passwords, then they can remember cert/domain combinations.

This goes double for Thunderbird and mail servers, which are configured,
not browsed.

Bug 155089: Need a better way to associate a certificate to a mail account
for authentication

just had its 7th birthday.

> As an aside, does anyone have any stats about how many people use these 
> non-Firefox security devices?  

I don't have numeric statistics.  Users in certain countries, and users
who are customers of certain banks, use them a lot.  Banks in some countries
give them away to customers. But elsewhere they're mostly used in "closed"
corporate or governmental environments.  (I guess banks and their customers
are "closed" environments, too.)

> It is somewhat clear that most end-users can't use these things, only
> corporates can.  So Mozilla priority for these things might be lacking.

The average browser user doesn't even set/use a "master password".  So,
the site passwords that his browser remembers are stored "in the clear".
The reason is not that the user doesn't know about master passwords.
It's that users don't want to be bothered with a password request, EVER,
not even once per browser process lifetime.

These same users complain that Firefox has a dialog that will show them
their saved web site passwords.  They're (rightly) afraid that others will
use this feature to steal their passwords when they're not looking.  (Of
course, they could also set their screen savers to require a password to
unlock, but they don't do that, either.)  When told that setting a master
password will prevent Firefox's passwords from ever being shown without
entering it immediately before the display, they balk at having to set a
master password.  They don't understand that, as long as the passwords are
stored "in the clear", they're vulnerable, whether FF displays them in a
dialog or not.

My point is that I think the relevant questions are:
- how many end users who *want* to use them can do so?  and
- What are the reasons they don't?

I think we'll need something that is as widely accepted as a credit card
before this takes off. But that by itself won't suffice.  It will also
require identity theft to get a LOT WORSE before the average consumer
decides that having to lift a finger to protect himself isn't such a bad idea.
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