| Home > Certificates When browsing the AEGEE pages, you sometimes might see an error when clicking on a link, mentioning something about invalid certificate. The problem is that certificates for web servers cost lot of money, something AEGEE does not have. Next to that, certificates are normally used to protect your privacy when browsing sites, and prevent information you exchange with a server from being evesdropped. Especially when connecting with banks, or doing online shopping, it is of upmost importance that you are sure you connect with the real company, and not a faked one. A valid certificate assures you that you are contacting the company you think you are contacting.
Every certificate is handed out by a certificate authority. This entity is the one that asks for money if you want to have your own certificate. You need a separate certificate for every domain name you run a website on, and as AEGEE has several, costs will be even higher. For this reason, AEGEE-Europe started its own certificate authority. But, as your browser does not automatically trust this authority, you'll have to manually add it.
The certificate you have to add can be found at http://www.aegee.org/aegee-ca.crt. Make sure the following fingerprint is the same, only in this case you are importing the real certificate, and not a fake one:
- SHA1 Fingerprint: B2:5F:40:BD:0D:A4:B3:1A:E1:50:B6:9F:3A:E3:E0:2C:46:41:56:96
- MD5 Fingerprint: 56:4F:B2:28:B8:AF:8A:5F:1F:BE:17:91:A6:C7:35:E0
Currently, the certificate authority is used to sign certificates for the following domains (more might follow later):
- www.aegee.org
- www.commissions.aegee.org
- www.locals.aegee.org
- www.oms.aegee.org
- www.projects.aegee.org
- www.wg.aegee.org
- www.zeus.aegee.org
In the following section you can find description for different browsers to import the certificate (more browsers will follow later):
When browsing in Firefox, you might see a page comparable to the one below:
If this happens, point your browser to http://www.aegee.org/aegee-ca.crt. When you do so, you'll get the following screen:
Tick all crosses, and click on 'View' to verify you downloaded the valid certificate. Make sure the 'Fingerprint' is exactly the same, as already mentioned above.
When you have verified the fingerprints, close the above window with 'Close', and afterwards the 'Downloading Certificate' with 'OK'. From now on, the error message should not pop up anymore.
When browsing in Internet Explorer, you might see a page comparable to the one below
You can click on 'Yes' to proceed, but this message will come back every time you restart your browser. A more sustainable solution is to point your browser to http://www.aegee.org/aegee-ca.crt. When you do so, you'll get the following screen:
Click on 'open' to start the import of the certificate. You'll now get the following screen:
Click on 'Install Certificate...' to continue:
Click on 'Next >'.
Click on 'Next >'.
Click on 'Finish'. You'll now get a security warning. Make sure that the 'Thumbprint (sha1)' is the same as mentioned above (don't worry about the missing colon (:) and extra spaces):
If the thumbprint matches, click on 'Yes' to install the certificate. You'll get the following message:
Click on 'OK', and the certificate is imported. Every site of AEGEE-Europe that uses a certificate created by the certificate authority of AEGEE-Europe will now automatically be accepted by your browser.
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