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SSL
5 August 2013
The recent (and ongoing) revelations of widespread wiretapping by the NSA are somewhat unsettling. The relative lack of interest in this story by the average American is even more unsettling. Given that both political parties are in favour of increased surveillance, and the public doesn't appear to care, things are probably going to get worse.
As of today this website is only available using the HTTPS protocol. HTTP (clear text) now redirects to HTTPS (encrypted with SSL). Although this website doesn't contain much that would be of interest to the NSA, raising the amount of encrypted traffic on the net will force them to be more selective on what they choose to look at. I have no doubt that they could monitor traffic to this site if they chose, but they'll now have to put some effort into it instead of just sweeping everything up on one of their fiber taps.
![[Certificate for neil.fraser.name]](/news/2013/ssl.png)
If you want to secure your own website, I recommend a free SSL certificate from StartSSL. Sadly, they don't support .name domains, so I was forced to use Go Daddy. At $6/year for SSL, Go Daddy aren't bad (to get this deal you have to do a Google search for "SSL Go Daddy" then click on their ad), though their recent ethical history is questionable.
As a child of the 80s, freedom was what separated the USA from the USSR. Freedom of speech, freedom of travel, freedom of the press, freedom of association. It is interesting to watch these defining features being casually tossed aside in the name of security.
