Geminispace Growing and Getting More Free (Independent)
Because self-signed certificates are the way to go
YESTERDAY we were outdoors most of the day (as were many other people, just looking to take advantage of a late arrival of summer; GamingOnLinux took a complete break as editor Liam Dawe is British). But our Gemini capsule was very busy, GNU/Linux went up some more in Web surveys, and a relatively high number of people joined the FSF. They're now just 45 short (to reach target) with a few hours left to go (Boston time).
In Gemini the total count of capsules went above 3,900. "There are 3902 capsules," it says over at Lupa, and Linux Foundation outsourcing waned some more. LE (Let's Encrypt) is now down to 4.0%. To quote: "2517 (90.7 %) capsules are self-signed, 111 (4.0 %) use the Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt, 146 (5.3 %) are signed by another CA (may be not a trusted one)."
One very popular Gemini capsule wrote as recently as some hours ago about trusting a self-signed certificate in the context of IRC, not the Web or Gemini. It said:
@sarahjamielewis@mastodon.social recently announced an IRC server with a self-signed certificate. What if you have an IRC client that keeps complaining about this?
On a system like Debian, you can download the certificate and install it such that all applications trust it.
Some IRC clients do insist on a CA cartel; so without outsourcing users would be denied access to IRC networks. Thankfully this isn't the case in Gemini and it's one thing to praise about it. Gemini is a departure from this fake security mentality. █