Newsletter Archives

• And…. we’re back

  Posted on July 19, 2018 at 20:38 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  The AskWoody site is now (finally!) back and working. Those of you who poked holes into your browsers may want to revert them. (And I can finally stop using Edge!)

  Many thanks to Drew, Doug, Robert — and to the legions of you who had the forbearance to not say in public what I was shouting in private.

  Anyway, the SSL cert ordeal is over. We ended up with a cert from Let’s Encrypt, woven into the fabric of the site itself. Let the games begin.

  Other SSL

• There are two hard problems in computing

  Posted on July 19, 2018 at 06:49 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Just saw this, tweeted by @liamosaur:

  There are two hard problems in computing.

  Staying calm enough to not throw the f####ng thing out of the window, and I’m so angry I forget what the other one is right now

  No, the epic AskWoody SSL cert problem isn’t solved yet.

   
  UPDATE – the site certificate is now showing as expiring in October! For now, we’re valid again – thank you all for your patience.

  Other SSL

• Things I learned last night…

  Posted on July 15, 2018 at 12:19 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  The servers are propagating our new SSL certificate. Those of you who got bumped because of a bad cert will soon be able to hop on board. I hope.

  Here’s what I learned, late last night on into early this morning:

  1. Just because your site registration  is set up for automatic renewal doesn’t mean your SSL (“https”) certificate is set up for automatic renewal.
  2. The process for buying and installing a new SSL cert is straight out of the 1960s.
  3. Bash isn’t all that hard to pick up. Made me feel like I was working with DOS 3.21 again.
  4. When you get a private key, if you want to use it as an RSA key for your SSL certificate, you have to type “RSA” in the correct location on the first and last lines.

  Anyway, we’re supposed to be back and in the mainstream shortly.

  UPDATE: Or maybe not. We’re still workin’ on it. Sure wish there was an SSL Certs For Dummies.

  Other SSL

• New DoS tool from THC

  Posted on October 26, 2011 at 21:13 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  It’s supposed to be a small program that will bring SSL “https” sites to their knees.

  The reality isn’t quite so dire.

  InfoWorld Tech Watch.

  Other DDoS, DoS, SSL, THC

• The sorry tale of the (un)Secure Sockets Layer

  Posted on September 15, 2011 at 08:04 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  If you think using https – or watching for the “lock” icon in your favorite browser – is going to keep you out of harm’s way, you don’t know the latest.

  See my Windows Secrets Top Story for details.

  Windows Patches/Security CA, fake certs, Secure Sockets Layer, SSL