Let's encrypt

Let's encrypt is a proposed Certificate Authority that is being created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in partnership with Mozilla, Cisco, Akamai, IdenTrust, and researchers at the University of Michigan. Its aim is to "clear the remaining roadblocks to transition the web from HTTP to HTTPS."

Background

The EFF argues that a switch from HTTP to HTTPS is necessary on the grounds of security. It argues that using HTTP websites leaves one open to problems such as account hijacking, identity theft, surveillance, malicious scripts and censorship targeting keywords on websites. It argues that HTTPs, while far from flawless, is a major improvement in all these areas, and should therefore be universally adopted. The Let's Encrypt Certificate Authority is intended to facilitate more widespread adoption by automatically issuing and managing certificates for any website that needs them.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Hypertext Transfer Protocol