Saturday, October 22, 2011

SarahPAC's SSL certificate has expired!

With online transactions, an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate gives users some confidence that they've connected to the site that they think they've connected to. SSL also encrypts the transaction.

Yesterday morning, I learned that the SSL certificate for sarahpacdonate.com would expire that afternoon:



This morning, the certificate has indeed expired:



What does SarahPAC's certificate provider say about this?



That last image was obtained by clicking on the Trustwave "Click to Validate" button at sarahpacdonate.com. To do that, you will have to override your browser's warning that sarahpacdonate.com hasn't a valid certificate. Not recommended! If your browser doesn't warn you, something may be wrong with your browser.


What's the takeaway? Without a certificate issued by a Certificate Authority (CA), there are these problems: 1) No CA verifies that SarahPAC operates sarahpacdonate.com; 2) No CA has records indicating that SarahPAC is a valid entity; 3) Users of sarahpacdonate.com cannot be sure that their credit card and identity information are secure.

There may not be a lot of readers of this blog who are SarahPAC donors. If you're not a donor, there is no need to worry -- it may even be good for a laugh. It certainly indicates that SarahPAC is disorganized.

Don't trust sarahpacdonate.com without a valid certificate. Wait! What am I saying? Don't trust it even if it renews its certificate, unless you want to pay for Palin family vacations! Hahaha.

Note: All of the images can be enlarged by clicking on them.

For comparison, here is what clicking on the Trustwave "Click to Validate" button yielded yesterday when the certificate was valid:




Update: 27 October, 2011 ... sarahpacdonate.com appears to have renewed its certificate! What took them so long?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

How will she ever afford the big Disney trip she has coming up? Oh, wait, no doubt the FL GOP is rolling in stolen tax dollars and will front the whole trip for the woman they think is a respected party leader. Sick.

Anonymous said...

Nice find.

Tyroanee said...

But, but Sarah Palin isn't affiliated with SarahPac in anyway... Well, unless she want's to buy her own books, or if you wants some new shrink wrap for her deserted family vacation tour...or baawhaaaa!!!

Anonymous said...

Maybe it is on its way down? Maybe, finally, the grifting will come to an end. Or, maybe somebody finally filed a lawsuit!

I can only hope.

Joie Vouet said...

Piper Palin told a reporter that a bus tour -- paid for by SarahPAC -- was a vacation. LINK

Anonymous said...

Did sarahpac ever file its third quarter financial report that was due on 9/30 ?? If they/she didn't, where is the FEC ?? Why aren't they investigating ? And the IRS too !

Anonymous said...

Ack! Second try - sorry if this ends up a dupe -

I tried all last night to connect with sarahpac and all I got (from Australia) was an oddly written invalid page error msg. but even more odd (to me) was the fact that no one - on any of the 4palin sites - said a word. No discussion, nobody asking how they could donate - nothing.

So is this her way of jumkping into the 2012 race? Lose the pac - ditch Fox job then jump into the race?

You just know that is how the palinbots are going to interpret this - that she's getting ready to jump in. Canj't wait for them to work out she's simply incompetent -

-Oz

Anonymous said...

Still down.

10/23/11 9:40amCST.

Bounced payroll check?

sarahpac deathwatch said...

10/23/2011 7:50 PM

sarahpacdonate.com still insecure.

Joie Vouet said...

11/24 6:33 A.M. (Eastern time) ... the certificate has not been renewed.

DJLO said...

It doesn't take that long to renew or obtain a new certificate. I see my tip turned into a blog post :) This only goes to show how disorganized Sarah and her party of minions really are. I suppose most of the idiots that donate to her will probably accept the broken certificate. How funny would it be if someone hijacked and re-directed that site...maybe in my youth but not now :P