So this video explains how https works. What I don’t get is what if a hacker in the middle pretended to be the server and provided me with the box and the public key. wouldn’t he be able to decrypt the message with his private key? I’m not a tech expert, but just curious and trying to learn.

  • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 month ago

    people will happily click ‘continue anyway’

    Not possible without a certificate. There will be no TLS connection, only an error message. No ‘click continue’.

    • ferret@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      It is trivial for an attacker to make self-signed TLS certs, and you can absolutely just click “continue” on sites that use them when you get a warning from the browser

        • ferret@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 month ago

          I am personally using firefox and referencing my own servers that use their own self-signed TLS certs that I have not bothered to load onto my pc because they aren’t public, but chromium-based browsers aren’t some outlier here

        • Cras@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 month ago

          Firefox, Chrome, Edge, will all warn you about self-signed certs or cert mismatches but allow you to continue. You’re completely correct that SSL/TLS needs a certificate, but it doesn’t need to be CA issued or in any way legitimate for the encrypted tunnel to be established