journal features

let's encrypt for free certificates

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2018.09.05

I've now put SSL encryption on all four of my websites. I don't know if that makes them more secure* but given what I do for a living, it really makes sense for the appearance, given that the browsers are starting to flag anything without encryption as insecure!

Especially since reputable and widely supported certificates are now available for free in an automated fashion. It's all nicely encapsulated on the "Let's Encrypt" website. Let's Encrypt is an initiative founded by the Electronic Freedom Foundation and others in the industry. Their certificates are, as of last month, accepted even by Microsoft, so they're prime-time. What's particularly interesting is that they've completely automated their process for certificate installation and renewal, so you can obtain a certificate and keep it up to date with a simple cron job. Child's play.

*There are no transactions, and I ask for no sensitive data being input. Also, I've seen commercial products that can apparently scan content supposedly encrypted end to end by SSL.

rand()m quote

Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest.

—T.S. Eliot