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Always use secure connection to UK Indymedia sites - Firefox add-on

Rogue Radish | 07.09.2010 16:42 | Indymedia | Technology

Here's how you can set Firefox to always use secure (encrypted) connections on UK Indymedia sites.

Indymedia recommend that you connect to sites using a secure connection. This means connecting to:
 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/
Instead of
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/
(i.e. https at the beginning instead of http)

You can read about why to do this and what a secure connection is here (also contains useful information about accepting certificates):  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/static/security.html

If you use the Firefox browser (  http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/ ), those lovely people at The Tor Project (  https://www.torproject.org/ ) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (  https://eff.org/ ) have written an add-on that allows you to default to the secure connection for websites called HTTPS Everywhere. This means that even if you type  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/ you will be taken to the secure version of the site.

The add-on does not, by default, include rules for UK Indymedia sites. So I thought I'd write some. So, if you want to make sure that when you browse Indymedia sites based in the UK, here is how to do it.

1. Install the add-on. You can get the add-on from EFF here:  https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

2. Add the UK Indymedia sites rule to the add-on by copying the attached file into the HTTPSAnywhere subdirectory of your Firefox profile (help on finding your profile:  http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox )

3. Restart Firefox. Make sure that the HTTPSAnywhere add-on is enabled and that the 'UK Indymedias' box is checked in the preferences. If you need to change the preferences, restart Firefox again.

4. Check that it is working. This link:  http://oxford.indymedia.org.uk should take you to this address:  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/oxford/

NOTES

a. If you spot anything that is not working, or if I have missed off any sites, please say so in the comments and I will update the script.

b. I am not a techie, and I think there might be a better way of writing the rules. If you can do so, please add it to the comments. The instructions for writing rules are here:  https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere/rulesets

c. The xml file is provided as is. I've tried to make sure it works, but use of the rules is at your own risk.


Hope this helps. Happy IMC surfing.

Rogue Radish

Additions

comprehensive ruleset for all international Indymedia sites

09.09.2010 01:15

I've spent several hours checking all Indymedia sites linked from the front page to see if they accept encrypted URLs, and here is the resulting ruleset for use with HTTPS Everywhere. Let me know if you find something that isn't covered by this, or that doesn't work.

<ruleset name="Indymedia">

<!-- the main indymedia.org and indymedia.org.uk domains -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?indymedia\.org(\.uk)?" to=" https://www.indymedia.org$2"/>
<!-- london.indymedia.org.uk is different to indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/ -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?london\.indymedia\.org\.uk" to=" https://london.indymedia.org.uk"/>
<!-- Nottingham has its own setup -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?nott(ingham|s)\.indymedia\.org\.uk" to=" https://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk"/>
<!-- Bristol has its own setup under the indymedia.org domain -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?bristol\.indymedia\.org" to=" https://bristol.indymedia.org"/>
<!-- All other UK regions are in region subdirectories of the main indymedia.org.uk domain -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?(birmingham|cambridge|liverpool|manchester|oxford|scotland|sheffield|southcoast|world)\.indymedia\.org\.uk"
to=" https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/$2"/>
<!-- Scotland has its own domain as well now, indymediascotland.org, but that doesn't have an encrypted URL -->
<!-- Northern Indymedia has its own domain -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?(northern-|northern.)indymedia\.org" to=" https://northern.indymedia.org"/>

<!-- The print and satellite projects aren't encrypted, but radio and video are -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?(radio|video)\.indymedia\.org" to="https://$2.indymedia.org"/>

<!-- Some international Indymedias have encrypted sites, others don't.
Many of them have self-signed or invalid certificates, so your browser might complain, but you can override it. -->

<!-- Africa -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?(estrecho|kenya|southafrica)\.indymedia\.org" to="https://$2.indymedia.org"/>

<!-- Canada -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?(maritimes|bc)\.indymedia\.org" to="https://$2.indymedia.org"/>

<!-- East Asia -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?(qc)\.indymedia\.org" to="https://$2.indymedia.org"/>
<!-- Europe -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?(abruzzo|athens|austria|barcelona|belarus|bxl|brussels|calabria|emiliaromagna|euskalherria|grenoble|istanbul|italy|linksunten|madrid|malta|nantes|ovl|paris|piemonte|roma|switzerland|torun|toscana|ukraine)\.indymedia\.org"
to="https://$2.indymedia.org"/>
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?indymedia.ie" to=" https://www.indymedia.ie"/>
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?indymedia.nl" to=" https://www.indymedia.nl"/>

<!-- Latin America -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?(argentina|bolivia|sucre|colombia|ecuador|peru|qollasuyu|rosario|santiago|uruguay|venezuela)\.indymedia\.org"
to="https://$2.indymedia.org"/>

<!-- Oceania -->
<!-- nothing yet -->

<!-- South Asia -->
<!-- nothing yet -->

<!-- United States -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?(arizona|hawaii|houston|sandiego|seattle|)\.indymedia\.org"
to="https://$2.indymedia.org"/>
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?.indybay\.org" to=" https://www.indybay.org"/>

<!-- West Asia -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?(israel)\.indymedia\.org" to="https://$2.indymedia.org"/>

<!-- Topics -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?(biotech)\.indymedia\.org" to="https://$2.indymedia.org"/>

<!-- Process -->
<!-- Ironically, tech.indymedia.org doesn't have a https site -->
<rule from="^http://(www\.)?(lists|docs)\.indymedia\.org" to="https://$2.indymedia.org"/>

</ruleset>


anon


@ comprehensive ruleset for all international Indymedia sites

09.09.2010 18:31

Nice one anon - works for me.

I put the script on my blog here so that people can see and copy it without the space that gets added when this site turns URLs into like (like this to=" https://london.indymedia.org.uk )

Here's the script without spaces ...
 http://penguin.ox4.org/node/397

When fully tested it, I think it's worth sending to EFF to include as a standard part of HTTP Everywhere.

penguin


Comments

Display the following 11 comments

  1. Here's the attachment — Radish
  2. Here's the attachment — Radish
  3. INDYMEDIA MODS CAN YOU HELP? — Radish
  4. what to do — help
  5. Error message in browser — invalid
  6. re: invalid security certificate — anon
  7. howto for Linux users — anon
  8. The full xml file — Radish
  9. regular expressions — anon
  10. OK but — Technofobe
  11. Step by step instructions — Penguin