Re: [Bug-wget] --no-check-cert does not avoid cert warning

[Tim Ruehsen]

On Tuesday 01 December 2015 18:39:06 Giuseppe Scrivano wrote:
> Ángel González <address@hidden> writes:
> > On 30/11/15 22:33, Tim Rühsen wrote:
> >> There is the situation where --no-check-cert is implicitly set (.wgetrc,
> >> /etc/wgetrc, alias) and the user isn't aware of it. Just downloading
> >> without a warning opens a huge security hole because you can't verify
> >> where you downloaded it from (DNS attacks, MITM).
> >> I leave it to your imagination what could happen to people in unsafe
> >> countries... this warning could save lives.
> >> 
> >> For an expert like Karl, this is just annoying.
> >> 
> >> The warning text could be worked on, makeing clear that you are really
> >> leaving secure ground, that cert checking has been explicitly turned off
> >> and how to turn it on again. And only proceed if you really, really are
> >> aware of what you are doing.
> >> 
> >> Of course all this applies to HTTP (plain text) as well. But someone
> >> requesting HTTPS and than dropping the gained security should be warned
> >> by
> >> default.
> >> 
> >> My thinking is a pessimistic approach, but as long as you can't be 100%
> >> sure that bad things can't happend due to dropping the warning, we
> >> should leave it (and improve it the best we can).
> >> 
> >> Tim
> > 
> > An alternative to make  --no-check-certificate silent would be to
> > 
> > provide a parameter to explicitely silence it:
> >  --no-check-certificate=quiet
> 
> good idea, it looks like a good compromise.  Tim, would it work for you?
> We will keep the current behavior, and brave users can use the new
> parameter.

Shell work-arounds seem to be no option, just head on.

Tim