Hi everyone, I’ve been trying to understand how MiTM setups like a transparent proxy work.

Obviously, the use-case here is in a personal scope: I’d like to inspect the traffic of some of my machines. I am aware that Squid can be a transparent proxy, and some might use the Burp Suite to analyse network traffic.

Could someone explain the basic networking and the concept of certificates in this scenario? I feel like I don’t understand how certificates are used well enough.


For example: I realise that if someone inserts a root certificate in the certificate store of an OS, the machine trusts said CA, thus allowing encrypted traffic from the machine to be decrypted. However, say the machine was trying to access Amazon; won’t Amazon have its own certificate? I don’t know how I’m confused about such a simple matter. Would really appreciate your help!

losttourist
link
fedilink
21Y

Yes, I think that ‘masquerading’ is the key bit to grasp. The MITM Proxy isn’t just intercepting the traffic, it alters the traffic as it passes through.

@MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world
creator
link
fedilink
English
11Y

Thanks, got it!

Create a post

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we’re here to support and learn from one another. Insults won’t be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it’s not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don’t duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

  • 1 user online
  • 80 users / day
  • 113 users / week
  • 244 users / month
  • 852 users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 1.53K Posts
  • 8.72K Comments
  • Modlog