, 5 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
A lot of people think TLS is unnecessary for software updates, provided the update mechanism already includes signing/verification. Unless you’re Microsoft, this seems like a big mistake.
The value of TLS is not that it’s the right protocol for this purpose. It’s that it’s a *standard* protocol that a lot of very smart people have looked at, and ditto (to a lesser extent) for many common implementations.
For example, apropos a conversation from this morning, here’s what the VideoLAN Wiki says about VLC’s software signing.
Does that mean there’s a problem with the VLC update mechanism. Absolutely not. Would I bet $10,000 that this mechanism is solid? Hell no.
In summary, the problem is that (with a few exceptions) there is no single standard protocol or implementation for app self-updates, so there are ten thousand protocols each with 1/10,000th the study. Sometimes it’s nice when a million flowers bloom. But some will be rotten.
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