This would've been true a while back prior to major browsers checking for certificate transparency log entries as part of the handshake.
replySo, I do agree this could be problematic, on specific cases where people not using a major browser were accessing resources some is interested on, on a network they have control of. Makes the surface quite small.
The threat here is more so for 'backend' services than regular browser users.
This is misleading. In order to read traffic you would need to swap out the end-entity TLS certs being used. Phones and browsers (at a minimum) enforce certificate transparency, so connections would fail.
replyBut the point of the OP is that git, curl, pip, python, etc don't use certificate transparency. That's why it's so egregious that apple still trusts these certs by default in these non-browser edge cases.
replyBuddy, 3 letter agencies don't need these weak keys, they straight up own root CAs.
replyMy point is less NSA and more NSO. The UAE was denied a root CA[0]. DarkMatter applied to be its own root CA until it was denied[1] over concerns raised about potential spying/espionage[2].
replyThere are people from these CAs who were denied in the past explicitly for concerns about spying who now work at eMudhra[3,4].
0: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1474556
1: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1427262
2: https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.security.policy/c/nnLVNfqgz7g/m/TseYqDzaDAAJ
3: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2083449#c43
4: https://emudhra.com/en/blog/scott-rea-joins-emudhra-as-senior-vice-president-global-strategic-advisor