Page 1 of 1

Testers: https-everywhere ruleset for lds.org

Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 12:19 am
by mrbagley
Hello,

I need some testers - volunteer basis. I've made a ruleset for a Firefox addon called Https-Everywhere for lds.org. It will make most of lds.org encrypted by default for anyone who has it installed. I have already done the initial testing on it, but I wanted others to test it out before I submit it.

You see, the Https-Everywhere addon makes encrypted (SSL) connections to as many websites as possible. It uses "rulesets," which are xml files with redirection, exclusion, and other rules, to know which sites can be encrypted, if any part of a site needs to not be encrypted, or other factors. Currently there are over 1300 rulesets.

So when you go to google.com, it redirects you to https://encrypted.google.com. Automatically. Only you and google know the search. And it works even if the site was not really designed for it.

This has both privacy and security benifits. But I won't go into those. Just know it's not about "hiding". It's about securing the connection and keeping it more private.

So, if you're interested you can install the already made addon from my github. It's the development version of the addon with the lds.org ruleset already in it. This is the easiest. You'll just have to allow it to install (and be sure to restart Firefox, sorry). The link is:

https://github.com/downloads/bagley/https-everywhere/https-everywhere-2.0development.5~lds.org.xpi

Or if you want to do it yourself, go to the bottom for instructions on how to do it manually with the official addon.

Once you have it installed, try it out. Go to lds.org and browse the site. Go back and forth between https and http (You can make firefox 7/8/9 show the http by changing browser.urlbar.trimURLs to false in about:config). Try it logged in, and then not logged in. The following sites are currently supported:

lds.org
history.lds.org
store.lds.org
tech.lds.org
institute.lds.org
seminary.lds.org

The following do not support encryption:
classic.lds.org
lds.org/ldsorg <- this uses the old lds.org, and https fails at times or pages won't load properly.
jesuschrist.lds.org

These already forces encryption, so we don't include them.
secure.lds.org
cdol.lds.org

Let me know if you find any problems, or if you see any room for improvement, such as another ___.lds.org to include. Just make sure it doesn't redirect. For example, music.lds.org redirects to lds.org/churchmusic, so I won't include that separately.

You may view my notes, along with the rules, as a text file or as markup. For anyone who knows git and wants to play with the source, you can get it from:
official: https://gitweb.torproject.org/https-everywhere.git
my fork: https://github.com/bagley/https-everywhere

Also the file is called TheChurchofJesusChristofLatterdaySaints.xml. What do you think, does that look okay? It can't have spaces.

Thanks ahead, and apologies for the long post.

Matt Bagley


PS. Just think, you can browse this forum encrypted, "in style." :cool:

If you do like Https-everywhere, I recommend that after you are done testing the lds ruleset that you uninstall it, and head on over to https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere and get the official one. If you don't like it, then still uninstall it. You do not want an outdated addon in your browser, as the download is only a temporary setup to test out the lds.org ruleset. I simply want this ruleset to get into the stable version as soon as possible. That's why I'm asking for people to try it out. They are more likely to put it into the stable branch if lots of people test it.

----
As for installing, here is another method, but I'll warn you it may be much harder depending on your skills. Go to https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere to get the official addon. Then, after you restart Firefox, download and copy/move the following two files into your into the folder HTTPSEverywhereUserRules inside your firefox profile. For help on finding your firefox profile, refer to

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

Here's the two files to put in there:
TheChurchofJesusChristofLatterdaySaints.xml
iPerceptions.xml