[Rhodes22-list] Does our website need SSL?

[Michael D. Weisner]

The EC2 was the lowest cost AWS Linux product that was able to provide hosting and MailMan services at the time. Things may have changed since then.
Mikes/v Wind Lass ('91)
-------- Original message --------From: Hank <hnw555 at gmail.com> Date: 7/21/20  7:18 PM  (GMT-05:00) To: The Rhodes 22 Email List <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org> Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Does our website need SSL? Hey Mike,I'm curious why you are running the website on an EC2 instance.  Isn't itpretty much static?  Have you considered just having it in an S3 bucketwith cloudfront?  Then you wouldn't have to manage the OS on the EC2 andit's probably cheaper as well.HankOn Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 8:48 PM Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com>wrote:> I cannot tell you all how happy I am that so many of you have shown> interest in the website design. Thank you Peter for creating something new> to illustrate where we can go. Thank you Luis for your efforts to work with> Nabble. I didn't know that it was open source. Thank you all for your> interest in the effort to bring our website up to date.>> For those who know significantly more than I do about web services,> especially that we should secure the website, I am happy to report that we> are hosted currently on Amazon Web Services (AWS) as an EC2 server. It> appears that a free SSL certificate may be easily obtained directly through> AWS or LetsEncrypt and added to our instance with little or no additional> cost.>> The responsibility for the rhodes22.org website and email list manager> was transferred to me from John Lock in the spring of 2016 when he lost the> ability to provide hosting services. John had assumed the responsibility> from Michael Meltzer who had hosted Rhodes22.org for several years. It> should be noted that Michael Meltzer still owns and pays for the domain> name.>> I chose AWS because felt that we needed to avoid using personal server> resources or services that might go out of business or change their rules> (GeoCities). If Amazon failed, the loss of the list would be the least of> our problems. Our AWS charges are about $15/month, a sum that I have been> happy to pay considering the activity on da list. For greater details as to> the origins of Rhodes22.org, Blew Skies, etc., I defer to Mary Lou as the> list historian since I have only been on da list since 2005 or so.>> Since I was not a webmaster, I made few changes to the website portion. I> was more concerned with survival of the email list and the archives. I> asked for volunteers and help in the past and my May 24th call was answered> by many of you this year (nearly 30 posts!)>> Rhodes22.org has more content than any sailboat forum I have visited and a> very active membership. Now, we need to make it accessible to all who visit> and easy to search. I am confident that we have the technology and the> people to make it happen.>> I want to move slowly so that our efforts are sustainable. There is so> much to talk about starting with creating a "wish list" of changes and> features followed by defining individual tasks and implementation> schedules. I would like to suggest a Zoom call to start an interactive> discussion about the possibilities, timeframes and costs (time and $$$).> Scheduling is very important as we are in the middle of sailing season in> North America.>> Mike> s/v Wind Lass ('91)> Nissequogue River, NY> I’d rather be sailing :~)>> -----Original Message-----> From: Rhodes22-list <rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org> On Behalf Of> Frederick Lange> Sent: Friday, July 17, 2020 6:07 PM> To: The Rhodes 22 Email List <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>> Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Does our website need SSL?>> SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, a global standard security technology> that enables encrypted communication between a web browser and a web> server.  Even if there is nothing that needs to be secured, users will be> put off if a SSL certificate is not there.>> *WWW* stands for World Wide Web.  It is no longer useful to identify a> domain as using HTML and it is too often hijacked these days.> Regards,>> Rick Lange>>> On Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 5:59 PM Peter Nyberg <peter at sunnybeeches.com>> wrote:>> > Rick,> >> > Could you clarify on your last point?> >> > On the proposed new home page I’ve included a link to> > www.facebook.com/ < http://www.facebook.com/>…  Should this be just> > facebook.com < http://facebook.com/>?  Or do you mean something else?> >> > —Peter> >> > > On Jul 17, 2020, at 5:48 PM, Frederick Lange> > > <sloopblueheron at gmail.com>> > wrote:> > >> > > SSL is definitely needed.  Most internet security software, like> > > Norton, either gives a warning or requires active verification if> > > there is no> > SSL.> > > Also, stay away from the www prefix as that's a common redirect> > > target these days.> > >> > > Regards,> > >> > > Rick Lange> > >> > >> > > On Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 5:24 PM Curtis Ruck via Rhodes22-list <> > > rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org> wrote:> > >> >> >>>