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Encryption Security

When Is a Self-Signed SSL Certificate Acceptable? 627

UltraLoser writes "When is it acceptable to encourage users to accept a self-signed SSL cert? Recently the staff of a certain Web site turned on optional SSL with a self-signed and domain-mismatched certificate for its users and encourages them to add an exception for this certificate. Their defense is that it is just as secure as one signed by a commercial CA; and because their site exists for the distribution of copyrighted material the staff do not want to have their personal information in the hands of a CA. In their situation is it acceptable to encourage users to trust this certificate or is this giving users a false sense of security?"
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When Is a Self-Signed SSL Certificate Acceptable?

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @10:51AM (#23934873)

    Yeah, we should trust Debian instead.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @01:16PM (#23937309)

    How do security morons like you get modded insightful? What the fuck? It's idiots like you that we can blame for all the stupid fucking once-off self-signed certificates on the internet. I don't know who the site is, I've never visited before, but I'm being asked to trust their certificate. There IS NO PRE-EXISTING RELATIONSHIP. There IS NO "BEFORE".

    Fuck you and the moron horse you rode in on. Making the internets less secure by being a FUCKING MORON.

    -- Your local TLS implementer, who has finally lost his shit with YOU STUPID MOTHER FUCKING SELF-SIGNED IDIOTS.

Our business in life is not to succeed but to continue to fail in high spirits. -- Robert Louis Stevenson

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