Bug#954111: libsearch-elasticsearch-perl: Please verify server identity via SSL

[Felix Lechner]

Package: libsearch-elasticsearch-perl
Severity: important

Dear maintainer,

Your package uses the Perl module HTTP::Tiny, but it does not force
the verify_SSL attribute to a true value.

By default, HTTP::Tiny does not validate the identity of server
certificates. The documentation states that "Server identity
verification is controversial and potentially tricky..." [1]

As late as 2015, upstream has been doubling up: "we're not going to be
responsible for the user's trust model" [2]

Similarly, your documentation states "By default, no validation of the
remote host is performed." [3]

I believe that the encryption of a transmission has no value when
talking to the wrong person. You can easily see HTTP::Tiny's useless
and dangerous default by running the script at the end of this
message.

Will you please turn on the verify_SSL attribute in HTTP::Tiny?

Kind regards
Felix Lechner

[1] https://metacpan.org/pod/HTTP::Tiny#SSL-SUPPORT
[2] https://github.com/chansen/p5-http-tiny/issues/68
[3] https://metacpan.org/pod/Search::Elasticsearch::Cxn::HTTPTiny

* * *

#!/usr/bin/perl

use HTTP::Tiny;

my $response = HTTP::Tiny->new->get('https://self-signed.badssl.com/');
 die "Failed!\n"
    unless $response->{success};

print "$response->{status} $response->{reason}\n";

while (my ($k, $v) = each %{$response->{headers}}) {
    for (ref $v eq 'ARRAY' ? @$v : $v) {
        print "$k: $_\n";
    }
}

print $response->{content}
    if length $response->{content};