Getting self-signed SSL certificates to work on Firefox 3.5

Theres alot of discussion lately about Mozilla’s decision to annex self-signed certificates in Firefox 3.x; up until now Firefox would have grudgingly lived with self-signed certificates – when reaching a website that was self-signed all you had to do was click the ‘add exception’ link at the bottom of the warning message, but no more!

When you visit a website that secures itself with a self-signed SSL certificate your now more likely to recieve a much more ominous warning telling you that the certificate is invalid and no obvious way to allow you to proceed regardless.

Having recently setup a secure subversion repository I had this exact problem also. This morning I found a solution, its not ideal but it works perfectly. To make Firefox play nice you have to add your CA (certificate authority) certificate AND your server certificate to Firefox’s list of allowed authorities, then and only then do you get the option to add the server as an exception. Here’s how you do it:

You will need a local copy of the ca.crt and server.crt certificate files.

Open the certificates window

Firefox Preferences -> Advanced Tab -> Encryption -> View Certificates

Import your Certificate Authority file

Authorities Tab -> Click Import -> Browse to your ca.crt file

Import your Server Certificate file

Servers Tab -> Click Import -> Browse to your server.crt file

Thats it! Next time you visit your website (https://mywebsite.com/ for example) you should now be able to add an exception to allow the self-signed certificate.

Reaching the Firefox preferences window differs slightly from OS to OS. In Mac OS X its Firefox -> Preferences, in Linux its often Edit -> Preferences and in Windows its Tools -> Preferences. Its beyond me why Mozilla couldn’t keep it consistent, but there you go.

I hope this post helped you.

A brief introduction into ‘RFID Systems’

RFID Reader care of amagill on Flickr

RFID Systems
By Max Bellamy

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is a network of microchip transponders, readers, and system software that makes possible the regular exchange of data.

Each RFID transponder, or a tag, is implanted with an integrated circuit (IC) and an antenna. The IC is encrypted with a unique electronic product code (EPC) that is equivalent to an electronic lineage, setting it apart the tagged item from any others in the world. When a tag comes into the range of an RFID reader, proprietary information is passed on through an antenna to a reader that consecutively supplies data to a central computer for processing.

RFID technology was firstly developed for armed forces during World War II, and it has spread out into trade, medical, education, automotive, defense, snack food, and travel industries. It has been expressed as “wireless bar coding,” but actually, even basic RFID beats bar coding capabilities by far. RFID scanning can be done from larger distances than those in bar code scanning. RFID eliminates the need for line-of-sight reading that bar coding depends on, and RFID systems can provide a range of up to 90 feet. The Intermec Technologies Corporation, a designer and producer of RFID systems, has signed a contract with the government recently. European RFID systems are still more constrained than those in the U.S.

RFID systems are self-powered and they do not have any human involvement. They can scan several items at a time and furnish fingerprint-specific information about each. RFID systems are generally differentiated by storage and retrieval capabilities (read-only or read-write and passive or active power sources) and by frequency- LF (low frequency), HF (high-frequency), or UHF (ultra-high frequency).

Read-only tags are limited to recovery of stored data, such as product lot number or an item description. Read-only systems can efficiently streamline basic production and supply chain operations. Read-write labels are designed with both read and write capabilities. In a passive system, an RFID reader produces an energy field that triggers activation and gives power to a tag.

A passive system is not so powerful and somewhat less dependable than an active system. An active system has batteries implanted in tags to power transmission of data between tag and reader. Active systems are more refined than passive systems and offer longer read ranges. They have other features such as temperature sensing and a longer operating life.

RFID provides detailed information on RFID, RFID Tracking, RFID Tags, RFID Technology and more. RFID is affiliated with DNA Testing Services.

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