Keeping your beardie AND YOU safe!

Hey everyone...

Some of you may know that I'm an information security guy with my day job. As such, I've been working behind the scenes to prepare the website to convert over to SSL. What does this mean? It means that all (assuming I didn't miss something) your browsing on BeardedDragon.org will be over an encrypted communication. While most people don't care if their "bearded dragon conversations" are secure, this also covers ensuring that your password is secure every time you login.

So, you should notice the little "https" or "lock" symbol indicating the site is now encrypted. Pages with images posted (including signatures) may not show a perfectly secure page, because pictures from other sites that are shown on the page are not usually encrypted.

This is part of an overall effort by many websites to make EVERYTHING we do on the web secure and encrypted, because we simply never know which thing we posted or said could be an issue. If someone wants your data, I want them to have a warrant and request it... not just find a way to snoop it. And yes, that includes the US's own NSA.

Perfect? Nah. But a good step in the right direction.

Btw, if you experience any problems on the site (stuff that looks broken), please let me know by replying on this thread!

Safe Browsing!
-Alex
(BeardedDragon.org founder, administrator, and fellow beardie enthusiast)

Thanks Alex!

i've noticed that every time i go to this site my computer warns me that this site is unsafe? and i have to click something saying i understand the danger?? is that what you're currently fixing or is this something else?

You mean you get that now? Or before? You shouldn't get any such error currently. If you are, then I have a problem that needs to be addressed. It's possible that some browsers may not recognize the company I use for my encryption certificates. If that's the case, then what the browser is truly saying is, "your data is encrypted, however, we cannot confirm that this site is really the 'real' beardeddragon.org website."

Please let me know if this is a current issue... also, which browser and version are you using?

Hmmm... So far, I've tested the following browsers:
On a Mac:
- Safari (latest)
- Google Chrome (latest)

On Windows:
- Internet Explorer 8
- Internet Explorer 11 (latest)

I didn't see a warning... then I just tried a site that checks SSL installations. It indicated that not all browsers may support my Certificate Authority (like I suspected). It only required me to configure the website to tell browsers about an "in between" authority that could then complete the chain of validation... making everything check out okay on that site.

So... do you still see problems?

Thanks,
-Alex

It works beauty on Safari (OSX 10.9.2) and latest Chrome (Windows 7) from what I've seen so far. Let me know if you'd like me to do any testing. I have access to lots of different environments.

i use a macbook pro and firefox, it does not show it since i went on the site the first time today around 7ish? but it usually shows up once a day the first time i try to go on the site that day

I think I have it covered now. I cover the main bases. I keep a couple virtual machines handy to do the testing with the most common browsers we have coming to the site. Thanks for the offer.

@MastaPete: If you do see it again, please let me know. If you could even capture the exact wording of the message, that might help me track down the problem and make it go away for good.

if i see it again i will for sure screen shot it for you.

I had a problem accessing the site last week but called Norton and they fixed it, it was an issue at their end, not here. Since then it's worked fine.

Yeah.... Norton is always causing problems for people (not with our site specifically, but in general). Never been a fan of it.

Any changes I made would have been as of the time of the first post of this thread. I enabled changes it at the same time.

Thanks Alex, I've been thinking of getting rid of Norton, but don't know too much about security on my computer. I'm going to call my provider as they have a program that comes with my computer.

I'd suggest either Kaspersky, McAfee, or Symmantec for anti-virus software. While they aren't the best in stopping malware, they're a good middle ground of security and user-friendliness. The best protection you can do is to pay attention to your own behavior, when it comes to opening email attachments, clicking on links you don't know if you can trust, and running software downloaded from a source you don't feel you can trust (i.e. never download pirated software from Torrents, etc.... those are just filled with trojan malware). Be careful with those behaviors, and then have Anti-virus as a secondary protection (behavior is first), and you should be reasonably safe.

I'm new to the boards, but I'm glad to hear what you did with the site!

I get that warning sometimes on my kindle fire (web browser is junk though, just thought I'd mention it anyways) like someone else said, mostly the first time of the day, sometimes more. I got it today as well. Im pretty sure it's the junky browser but it also force quits a lot on here (but I'm usually on this site, so I'm not sure if it's the site, or browser)