Open Source Encryption Still Rocks!

By LMSPulse Staff

May 31, 2022

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In 2016, Jonathan Moore, Founder of Elearning Consultancy, later My Learning Consultants, now Moodle™ US, shared a presentation on encrypting and protecting your Moodle™ site for free by using Let’s Encrypt.

In 2012, employees at nonprofit open source advocacy Mozilla decided to build a free and open certificate authority. Until then, only commercial and proprietary organizations were issuing the digital certificates that certify the authenticity and reliability of a given website or internet location. Unsurprisingly, the project gained traction and support quickly, with the EFF becoming the first major Let’s Encrypt supporter.

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Since Moore’s presentation, the tech has naturally evolved, but the core remains sound. If you need a quick update, here you go:

By 2020, Let’s Encrypt reached a billion certificates issued. More than 260 million websites use the open source certificate.
In 2020 the certificate earned the Levchin Prize for contributions to real-world cryptography.
At the time of writing, nearly 100 organizations sponsor the Authority, including IBM, Verizon, Red Hat, Cisco, Google, AWS, SAP, Shopify and lots more.

An easy way to get a Let’s Encrypt certificate comes courtesy of Certbot, an EFF project.

Jonathan Moore’s original workshop

Generally, the security certificates are very expensive and complicate to install. However, Let’s Encrypt provides free, automated and Open Source certificates. They are offering free Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TSL) Certificates and the best thing about it is the automated installation process.

Now, you may ask “Why I should encrypt my site”? So here is the answer for that:

Protect User’s Login credentials
Protect confidential information stored on your site
Safe access indicator in browsers

If you are ready to protect your site, then check out the presentation by Jonathan below:

Have you ever used any safety certificate (SSL/TSL) for your Moodle site? How was your experience with that in terms of installing and maintaining? Share with us in the comments below.