Looking at my mac's cert keychain, there are 185 trusted root certs. I don't know what any of them are or who has the private key to them.
My ISP could MITM my traffic whenever it wants to, if it has the private key of one of the hundreds of trusted root certs on my device.
Further, unlike the Kazakhstan certificate, those root certificates cannot bypass HTTPS public key pinning (HPKP).
1:
> there is a very real possibility of that certificate being blacklisted by browsers
Why would a browser blacklist a certificate? Is it possible for a browser to detect a MITM attack when the SSL traffic is all signed by the private key of a trusted root certificate?
2:
> Further, unlike the Kazakhstan certificate, those root certificates cannot bypass HTTPS public key pinning (HPKP).
You are saying that pre-installed root certificates behave differently than user-installed root certificates? Wouldn't that behavior be system-dependent? I was under the impression that no root certificates can bypass public key pinning... isn't that sort of the point of pinning? That it allows traffic encryption outside of the normal trust hierarchy? What makes the Kazakhstan cert special that allows it to break pinning?
2: Browsers ignore HPKP when the server certificate is trusted through a user or administrator installed root CA. All mainstream browsers on all platforms behave in this way. This is by design specifically to allow enterprises to do the sort of traffic interception that Kazakhstan is implementing. The rationale is that if an attacker is able to get as far as installing their own CA on your system, you're screwed anyway.
And I do not understand that going to jail instantly is a smaller burden for you than living with the small risk getting caught.
Do you really believe the NSA or any of those other patriots do not have a few of the private keys for the certificates you trust?
Instances, plural, including both browsers and various cross-check mechanisms (pinning, certificate transparency, etc). Likely too many people required for operational security.
Not saying it couldn't be done, but it certainly couldn't be done lightly or often, and even then it would produce significant risk of exposure. It certainly couldn't be effectively used for widespread traffic interception.
> And I do not understand that going to jail instantly is a smaller burden for you than living with the small risk getting caught.
As mentioned, there exists legal precedent that a warrant/subpoena for information from a third party can't compel that third-party to provide arbitrarily large amounts of aid or to impose an undue burden. Findings of "undue burden" have been upheld for burdens far smaller than "this has a risk of destroying the entire business".