alt Hacker NewsIf the attacker already controls the download link and has a valid https certificate, can't they just modify the published hash as well?
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Which is the reason why it's better to actually cryptographically sign the packages, and put a key in some trusted keystore, where it can actually be verified to belong to the real distributor, as well as proving that the key hasn't been changed in X amount of days/months/years.
Still doesn't address the fact that keys can be stolen, people can be tricked, and the gigantic all-consuming issue of people just being too lazy to go through with verifying anything in the first place. (Which is sadly not really a thing you can blame people for, it takes up time for no easily directly discernable reason other than the vague feeling of security, and I myself have done it many more times than I would like to admit...)
> If the attacker already controls the download link and has a valid https certificate, can't they just modify the published hash as well?
This implies an attacker controlling the server having the certificate's private key or the certificate's private key otherwise being exfiltrated (likely in conjunction with a DNS poisoning attack). There is no way for a network client to defend against this type of TLS[0] compromise.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security