1059185 - [UX] Redesign of certificate error page

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Security, defect)

Description

[(Currently slow to respond) Philipp Sackl [:phlsa] (Firefox UX) please use needinfo]

Attachment: Firefox current state

The current certificate error page has a very different style than most other in-content pages in the browser.
It could also be clearer about what is happening.

Comment 1

[(Currently slow to respond) Philipp Sackl [:phlsa] (Firefox UX) please use needinfo]

Attachment: Chromes version

Comment 2

[(Currently slow to respond) Philipp Sackl [:phlsa] (Firefox UX) please use needinfo]

Attachment: Operas version

I think this is the worst design of any browser (Safaris is almost identical) since it screams »clickthrough«

Comment 3

[(Currently slow to respond) Philipp Sackl [:phlsa] (Firefox UX) please use needinfo]

Attachment: IEs version

IMO IE does the best job in terms of clarity, even though their copy is also a little jargony.
Sorry for the German screenshot – I only have a German windows version.

Comment 4

[Johnathan Nightingale [:johnath]]

If we are going to make any changes to this page, we need to be careful not to harm its efficacy as a threat deterrent. Google's been studying these things and consistently found that our warnings prevent substantially more MitM attacks than theirs, for instance.

c.f. http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/42546.pdf and http://adrienneporterfelt.com/chi-ssl-experiment.pdf

Comment 5

[u428464]

The blocked site page could also be aligned with project Chameleon.

Comment 6

[u428464]

Attachment: about:blocked current design.png

Comment 7

[[:philipp]]

I want to suggest to use the redesign to also improve on the information provided in the technical details section of the error pages.

One of the most recurring inquiries on the SUMO forums are users with security software or malware intercepting secure traffic, resulting in a failure to load any secure pages once the root CA flies out of the browser's trust store (for example after a FF reset). Currently the 'sec_error_unknown_issuer' error won't offer any information that could lead a normally skilled user to a solution - users need to be instructed to manually attempt to add an exception (which isn't always possible), view the certificate and inspect the issuer section, which will hold clues as to what is causing the problem.

Therefore I want to advocate to show the unknown issuer of a certificate within the technical details of the sec_error_unknown_issuer error page (and possible other error codes to similar effect) - maybe by rewording like "The certificate is not trusted because its issuer XXX is not in the browser's trust store" or just adding it as another piece of information into the technical details. 
This would have the benefit that affected users will become sceptical when they see that all their sites are signed by DO_NOT_TRUST_ FiddlerRoot and don't create exceptions blindly, also they will be lead to the appropriate information for their particular situation when researching the error message and users might figure out what is going on on their own when they see that their AV vendor is always involved - all of this will reduce cost of support significantly.

Comment 8

[Dana Keeler (she/her) (use needinfo) [:keeler] (on leave)]

Looks like Adrienne Porter Felt came up with something really cool for Chrome: https://twitter.com/__apf__/status/514624880978198528 (basically, if you click on the error code, you see detailed information about the certificate rather than having to click (in our case) "I Understand the Risks", then "Add Exception", then "View" (and that's only for overridable errors - non-overridable errors don't provide any way to see this information).

Comment 9

[[:philipp]]

i would also advocate for a details section for non-overridable errors. 
here is a recent example of how much hassle it is for our users to figure this out: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1022132

Comment 10

[[:philipp]]

two more illustrative live examples of why we'd need certificate error messages that contain more useful information for users upfront - at the moment we are leaving them in a helpless state and/or give the impression it's a firefox issue:
https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1045536
https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1089049

and there are hundreds of such questions on sumo...