On 10/2/11 15:25 , Jimmy Hess wrote:
On Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 4:53 PM, <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
On Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:38:36 PDT, Michael Thomas said:
I'm not sure why lack of TLS is considered to be problem with Facebook. The man in the middle is the other side of the connection, tls or otherwise. Ooh.. subtle. :)
Man in the Middle (MITM) is a technical term that refers to a rather specific kind of attack.
In this case, I believe the proper term would be just "The man". [Or "Man at the Other End (MATOE)"]; you either trust Facebook with info to send to them or you don't, and network security is only for securing the transportation of that information you opt to send facebook.
alice sends charlie a message using bob's api, bob can observe and probably monetize the contents.
Yes, if Alice sends Bob an encrypted message that Bob can read, and Bob turns out to be untrustworthy, then Bob can sell/re-use the information in an abusive/unapproved way for personal or economic profit.
charlie is probably untrustworthy, bob is probably moreso (mostly because bob has more to lose than charlie), alice isn't cognizant of the implications of running charlie's app on bob's platform despite the numerous disclaimers she blindly clicked through on the way there.
-- -JH