27 June 2026
If TLS encrypts everything, why can a network observer still see which website you visited? TLS encrypts the application data, but the handshake leaks. The single largest plaintext leak is SNI (Server…
26 June 2026
Why did CRLs — the technology OCSP was meant to replace — quietly make a comeback? The CRL (Certificate Revocation List, RFC 5280 §5) is the original revocation mechanism: a CA publishes a signed, dow…
25 June 2026
How does TLS 1.3 detect a downgrade attack using nothing but the server's random value? Downgrade attacks force a connection to a weaker protocol the attacker can break — the lineage runs from FREAK t…
24 June 2026
Why does the certificate chain your server sends differ from the chain the browser actually validates? A common misconception is that a TLS server transmits "the" certificate chain and the client chec…
23 June 2026
Why isn't OCSP stapling enabled by default, given that everyone agrees it's better? OCSP stapling (the certificate_status TLS extension, RFC 6066 §8) has the server fetch a CA-signed OCSP response and…
22 June 2026
Why does a TLS 1.3 cipher suite name no longer tell you the key exchange or signature algorithm? In TLS 1.2, a cipher suite was a verbose bundle: TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 named the key ex…
