These options originated in the AOSP email client from which K-9 Mail was
forked. They provide an odd combination of 2 features:
1. Don't bother to authenticate the server's certificate (applies to both
SSL/TLS and STARTTLS); i.e., blindly accept all certificates. This is
generally a bad security policy which is susceptible to MITM attacks.
2. If STARTTLS is selected but the server doesn't claim to support
STARTTLS, then proceed without using encryption. This, too, is a bad
security policy which is susceptible to MITM attacks.
Since the time that K-9 Mail was forked, a couple things have changed:
> K-9 Mail has implemented the ability for users to review and permanently
accept individual certificates that would otherwise fail authentication.
With this ability, there is no need for a user to subject themselves to
the ongoing risks of feature 1. above. Hence, this commit removes feature
1.
> The AOSP email client has changed its behavior and no longer permits a
security downgrade to an unencrypted connection if the server doesn't
claim to support STARTTLS (i.e., they eliminated feature 2. above). K-9
Mail should do the same. It's unlikely that a server is going to provide
STARTTLS on an intermittent basis, so providing a contingency for such
unusual behavior is an unnecessary risk. Hence, this commit removes that
feature as well.
Effect on existing users:
If the old connection security setting was "SSL/TLS (if available)" (which
now gets remapped to "SSL/TLS"), and the server does not provide a
certificate that can be authenticated, then a "Certificate error for
<account name>" notification is generated telling the user to check their
server settings. Tapping the notification takes the user to the relevant
server settings, where the user can tap "Next" to review the certificate
and choose to permanently accept it. This process would occur during the
first syncing of folders after application upgrade or (in the case of
SMTP) during the first attempt to send a message.
If the connection security setting was "STARTTLS (if available)" (which
now gets remapped to "STARTTLS"), and the server does not provide a
certificate that can be authenticated, then the same process as above
would occur.
If the old connection security setting was "STARTTLS (if available)", and
the server doesn't claim to support STARTTLS, then the user would get a
certificate error notification which would lead them to the server's
settings. There they would need to choose a different connection security
-- most likely "NONE". If they didn't change anything but instead just
tapped "Next", the server settings would be checked again and a dialog
would pop up saying, "Cannot connect to server. (STARTTLS connection
security not available)". (The implementation of notifications when
STARTTLS is not available is not actually included here -- it's in the
commit that follows.)
Regarding the changes to providers.xml: in cases where the scheme ended
with "+ssl", the schemes were simply updated by appending "+". In cases
where the scheme ended with "+tls", a check of the server was made to
assure that STARTTLS was available before appending "+" to the scheme.
Domains paran.com and nate.com failed the check and were removed because
no current information could be found. Domains me.com and mac.com also
failed and were updated based on http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4864.
Applicable for strings not intended for user consumption.
A %d string format code can generate eastern-arabic numerals
for users with an arabic locale.
V/k9 (20763): conn1103774136>>> 5 UID SEARCH ٦٤٦:٦٧٠ NOT DELETED
V/k9 (20763): conn1103774136<<<#5# [BAD, Invalid Search criteria]
E/k9 (20763): synchronizeMailbox
E/k9 (20763): com.fsck.k9.mail.store.ImapStore$ImapException: Command: UID SEARCH ٦٤٦:٦٧٠ NOT DELETED; response: #5# [BAD, Invalid Search criteria]
AUTOMATIC = "Automatic"
PLAIN = "Normal password"
CRAM_MD5 = "Encrypted password"
SMTP also uses LOGIN. No localized text was associated with that because
a future commit will remove that option.
(The text is similar to that of Thunderbird's)
Proper host name validation was not being performed for certificates
kept in the local keystore. If an attacker could convince a user to
accept and store an attacker's certificate, then that certificate
could be used for MITM attacks, giving the attacker access to all
connections to all servers in all accounts in K-9.
This commit changes how the certificates are stored. Previously, an
entire certificate chain was stored for a server (and any of those
certificates in the chain were available for validating signatures on
certificates received when connecting). Now just the single
certificate for the server is stored.
This commit changes how locally stored certificates are retrieved.
They can only be retrieved using the host:port that the user
configured for the server.
This also fixes issue 1326. Users can now use different certificates
for different servers on the same host (listening to different ports).
The above changes mean that users might have to re-accept certificates
that they had previously accepted and are still using (but only if the
certificate's Subject doesn't match the host that they are connecting
to).
This commit modifies AccountSetupBasics so that it now calls
AccountSetupCheckSettings twice -- once for checking the incoming
settings and once for the outgoing settings. Otherwise, an exception
could occur while checking incoming settings, the user could say
continue (or the user could accept a certificate key), and the
outgoing settings would not be checked. This also helps with
determining if a certificate exception was for the incoming or
outgoing server, which is needed if the user decides to add the
certificate to the keystore.
The commit that introduced those notifications also introduced a rather
... interesting design pattern: The CertificateValidationException
notified the user of its pure existance - it's no longer a 'message'
only, but defines policy. As this is more than unusual, replace this
pattern by the MessagingController treating
CertificateValidationException specially when accessing remote folders.
Also make clear which account failed when constructing the notification.
With this fix, a CertPathValidatorException or CertificateException will
create a "Certificate error: Check your server settings" notification
in the status bar. When the user clicks on the notification, they are
taken to the appropriate server settings screen where they can review their
settings and can accept a different server certificate.
