Question

This code connects to a HTTPS site and I am assuming I am not verifying the certificate. But why don’t I have to install a certificate locally for the site? Shouldn’t I have to install a certificate locally and load it for this program or is it downloaded behind the covers? Is the traffic between the client to the remote site still encrypted in transmission?

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.Reader;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.URLConnection;
import java.security.cert.X509Certificate;

import javax.net.ssl.HostnameVerifier;
import javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLContext;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLSession;
import javax.net.ssl.TrustManager;
import javax.net.ssl.X509TrustManager;

public class TestSSL {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        // Create a trust manager that does not validate certificate chains
        TrustManager[] trustAllCerts = new TrustManager[] { new X509TrustManager() {
            public java.security.cert.X509Certificate[] getAcceptedIssuers() {
                return null;
            }
            public void checkClientTrusted(X509Certificate[] certs, String authType) {
            }
            public void checkServerTrusted(X509Certificate[] certs, String authType) {
            }
        } };
        // Install the all-trusting trust manager
        final SSLContext sc = SSLContext.getInstance("SSL");
        sc.init(null, trustAllCerts, new java.security.SecureRandom());
        HttpsURLConnection.setDefaultSSLSocketFactory(sc.getSocketFactory());
        // Create all-trusting host name verifier
        HostnameVerifier allHostsValid = new HostnameVerifier() {
            public boolean verify(String hostname, SSLSession session) {
                return true;
            }
        };

        // Install the all-trusting host verifier
        HttpsURLConnection.setDefaultHostnameVerifier(allHostsValid);

        URL url = new URL("https://www.google.com");
        URLConnection con = url.openConnection();
        final Reader reader = new InputStreamReader(con.getInputStream());
        final BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(reader);        
        String line = "";
        while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
            System.out.println(line);
        }        
        br.close();
    } // End of main 
} // End of the class //

Answer 1

The reason why you don’t have to load a certificate locally is that you’ve explicitly chosen not to verify the certificate, with this trust manager that trusts all certificates.

The traffic will still be encrypted, but you’re opening the connection to Man-In-The-Middle attacks: you’re communicating secretly with someone, you’re just not sure whether it’s the server you expect, or a possible attacker.

If your server certificate comes from a well-known CA, part of the default bundle of CA certificates bundled with the JRE (usually cacerts file, see JSSE Reference guide), you can just use the default trust manager, you don’t have to set anything here.

If you have a specific certificate (self-signed or from your own CA), you can use the default trust manager or perhaps one initialised with a specific truststore, but you’ll have to import the certificate explicitly in your trust store (after independent verification), as described in this answer. You may also be interested in this answer.