A Sea Of Red

Hello, Flamefans.com users. I have a geeky announcement to share with you.

As of this afternoon, traffic between your individual computers and the FlameFans.com server is now encrypted via a 256-bit SSL channel.

Why in the world would we need to encrypt traffic coming and going between our little message board?

Two reasons:

1. First and foremost, it has come to my attention that it is possible that some of our users are being tracked when using FlameFans.com on campus. With the website previously running unencrypted, it would have been possible for IT staff at the university to identify users from network log data, if they had wanted to. While I can't say for sure that this is/was happening, I can say that enabling SSL makes identifying users slightly more difficult for outside parties.

2. Previously, any text submitted to this site (including usernames and passwords) were being sent in the clear. This made it possible to capture credentials by logging the packets as they traveled from your computers to our server. In theory, it may have also been possible for university staff (or anyone with sufficient access at your ISP) to capture your password and gain access to your account. Again, I'm not saying that this has happened, but it was possible and now it's much more difficult for that to happen.

I strongly believe in your right to have as much privacy when using this board as you'd like. The moderators of this board are all strongly pro-Liberty and have always done a great job of policing the board. I have no doubt they will continue to do that in the future so that we can still welcome a modicum of anonymity on the board.

As always, I make no promises concerning privacy. You post at your own risk. However, I think these changes were necessary. Let me know if you encounter any problems.

One final note: I'd encourage all of you to change your passwords here. If you were using that password anywhere else (which you really should not be), I'd also encourage you to change those passwords as well. This is a "better safe than sorry" measure.

Happy Thursday.

Would this be why I've started getting a security warning every time I open a new page on Flamefans today?

ALUmnus wrote:Would this be why I've started getting a security warning every time I open a new page on Flamefans today?

That should not be happening. I'd like to troubleshoot it if you don't mind helping.

What browser are you using?

I'm getting them intermittantly on IE9

I couldn't open the site when trying to load flamefans.com. Once I added the www. to the front, it opened again.

At work I get no flamefans website...only a blank screen that says 'Nothing to see here. Move along.' Weird.

Dr. Sheh wrote:At work I get no flamefans website...only a blank screen that says 'Nothing to see here. Move along.' Weird.

Add the www. to the front and it should be fine. That's what I was getting earlier.

NotAJerry wrote:

Dr. Sheh wrote:At work I get no flamefans website...only a blank screen that says 'Nothing to see here. Move along.' Weird.

Add the www. to the front and it should be fine. That's what I was getting earlier.

These things are not related.

The message you saw was a temporary message while I was working on installing the SSL certificate. It may take up to 48 hours for it to disappear on all ISPs. (Details: The site moved to a new IP address as a part of this. The DNS entries pointing to the new IP will take a while to propagate across the Internet.)

The site will automatically prepend the www to the domain in modern browsers.

Rooster Cogburn wrote:I'm getting them intermittantly on IE9

Hmm. Of course IE would be the odd bird. Thanks.

El Scorcho wrote:

NotAJerry wrote:

Dr. Sheh wrote:At work I get no flamefans website...only a blank screen that says 'Nothing to see here. Move along.' Weird.

Add the www. to the front and it should be fine. That's what I was getting earlier.

These things are not related.

The message you saw was a temporary message while I was working on installing the SSL certificate. It may take up to 48 hours for it to disappear on all ISPs. (Details: The site moved to a new IP address as a part of this. The DNS entries pointing to the new IP will take a while to propagate across the Internet.)

The site will automatically prepend the www to the domain in modern browsers.

Thanks for the explanation El Scorcho.

El Scorcho wrote:

NotAJerry wrote:

Dr. Sheh wrote:At work I get no flamefans website...only a blank screen that says 'Nothing to see here. Move along.' Weird.

Add the www. to the front and it should be fine. That's what I was getting earlier.

These things are not related.

The message you saw was a temporary message while I was working on installing the SSL certificate. It may take up to 48 hours for it to disappear on all ISPs. (Details: The site moved to a new IP address as a part of this. The DNS entries pointing to the new IP will take a while to propagate across the Internet.)

The site will automatically prepend the www to the domain in modern browsers.

Man...I must be more of a nerd then I thought. 3 years ago I would of never understood a word of this...now I do, haha

El Scorcho wrote:

NotAJerry wrote:

Dr. Sheh wrote:At work I get no flamefans website...only a blank screen that says 'Nothing to see here. Move along.' Weird.

Add the www. to the front and it should be fine. That's what I was getting earlier.

These things are not related.

The message you saw was a temporary message while I was working on installing the SSL certificate. It may take up to 48 hours for it to disappear on all ISPs. (Details: The site moved to a new IP address as a part of this. The DNS entries pointing to the new IP will take a while to propagate across the Internet.)

The site will automatically prepend the www to the domain in modern browsers.

Ah, okay. That may actually be useful for me in the not too distant future.

"Modern browsers"



Thanks for all the hard work you put into this place, Scorcho.

On the network at my workplace, I get a security warning on every page, I have to click yes to allow the content.

El Scorcho wrote:

ALUmnus wrote:Would this be why I've started getting a security warning every time I open a new page on Flamefans today?

That should not be happening. I'd like to troubleshoot it if you don't mind helping.

What browser are you using?

I'm using IE8 here at work. Message reads:

Do you want to view only the webpage content that was delivered securely?
This webpage contains content that will not be delivered using a secure HTTPS connection, which could compromise the security of the entire webpage.

El Scorcho wrote:First and foremost, it has come to my attention that it is possible that some of our users are being tracked when using FlameFans.com on campus. With the website previously running unencrypted, it would have been possible for IT staff at the university to identify users from network log data, if they had wanted to. While I can't say for sure that this is/was happening, I can say that enabling SSL makes identifying users slightly more difficult for outside parties.

This thread reminds me of an ole 80's tune ... 80's, best music ever made! Michael J recorded a good version also

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mglZg0EIAPU

ALUmnus wrote:

El Scorcho wrote:

ALUmnus wrote:Would this be why I've started getting a security warning every time I open a new page on Flamefans today?

That should not be happening. I'd like to troubleshoot it if you don't mind helping.

What browser are you using?

I'm using IE8 here at work. Message reads:

Do you want to view only the webpage content that was delivered securely?
This webpage contains content that will not be delivered using a secure HTTPS connection, which could compromise the security of the entire webpage.

I'm getting the same thing intermittantly

Thanks R i, ALUmnus and oldflame.

I know what the problem is thanks to you guys. Now I just have to fix it.

Alrighty. I've made some changes. Please let me know if you're still encountering the warning messages. I'm posting this from IE9 and everything seems fine so far as I can tell.

And if you do see further warnings, screenshot 'em if you know how to do that. It'd be helpful.

The world would be a better place if everyone would just ditch IE

jcmanson wrote:The world would be a better place if everyone would just ditch IE

Yep. Unfortunately, I still come across the occasional site that only works properly in IE.

NotAJerry wrote:

jcmanson wrote:The world would be a better place if everyone would just ditch IE

Yep. Unfortunately, I still come across the occasional site that only works properly in IE.

Working in the financial world we are hooked on IE for most things.

For most people who use it, it isn't by choice. IE 8 and 9 have been vast improvements, though.

Unfortunately for me, I'm forced to use IE9 at work because the school system has limited the ability to install alternative browsers on our machines.

Simply entering flamefans.com is still not working in Chrome. Once I add either the www. to the front, or a /forums/index.php, then it works.