Subject: [bug#29046] [PATCH] gnu: linux-libre: Change URL to HTTPS.

From: [email-masked] (Ludovic Courtès)
Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2017 22:12:31 +0100

Mark H Weaver <[email-masked]> skribis:

> Is an active attack needed to determine which file we are downloading
> from linux-libre.fsfla.org?  I think not.  The IP address of that host
> reverse resolves to "linux-libre.fsfla.org", which makes it obvious.
> The title of the paper Ludovic cited above makes the point:
>
>   I Know Why You Went to the Clinic
>
> or in this case:
>
>   I know why you downloaded 97 megabytes from linux-libre.fsfla.org.
>
> Unless I'm mistaken, using TLS does *not* foil passive surveillance for
> source downloads in the overwhelming majority of cases, and especially
> not in this case.  Even at web sites that serve a larger variety of
> software, determining what was downloaded by the amount of data
> transferred does not require an active attack.

You’re right, though it’s already more work for github.com (11% of our
packages) or PyPI (17% of our packages).

This discussion is also interesting in the context of
<https://bugs.gnu.org/28659>, where one of the options discussed would
be to favor content-addressable mirrors over upstream sites.

Ludo’.