Free SSL/TLS certificate project moves closer to launch

Let’s Encrypt, a project aimed at increasing the use of encryption across websites by issuing free digital certificates, is planning to issue the first ones next month.

Digital certificates are used to encrypt data traffic between a computer and a server using SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security) and for checking that a website isn’t a spoof.

Let’s Encrypt is run by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG), a new California public-benefit corporation. Its backers include Mozilla, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cisco and Akamai.

The first certificates will not be valid unless administrators install the organization’s root certificate in their client software, wrote Josh Aas, ISRG’s executive director, in a blog post.

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