HN Explorer

Why can't I browse HN on my phone anymore

1 points by DavidWanjiru ↗ HN
For the last two weeks or so, I haven't been able to browse HN on my phone (Nokia 1680c feature phone, Opera Mini 3.1.xxxx browser). I get the error message "unable to complete secure transaction https://news.ycombinator.com" I've been using the same phone/browser combination successfully for the past maybe four years, without any issue, and it still works for most other websites. Anybody know what gives?

3 comments

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mattl
My guess is Heartbleed caused a new SSL and Opera doesn't like it.
lutusp
The possibility exists that some online sites (and/or browsers) are now recognizing, and refusing to negotiate with, OpenSSL versions prior to 1.01g (the first bug-fix version).

Now that I've said that, I just tested my desktop OpenSSL version:

   $ ssh -V
   OpenSSH_6.6p1 Ubuntu-2ubuntu1, OpenSSL 1.0.1f 6 Jan 2014
(translation: bad, heartbleed)

And compared it to one of my own Android apps that I have updated with the latest OpenSSL version:

   $ ssh -V
   OpenSSH_6.6p1, OpenSSL 1.0.1g 7 Apr 2014
(translation: first bug-fix version)

Both these devices work with HN and other SSL sites, but neither is running Opera.

My recommendation is that you see whether you can get an updated OpenSSL version for your phone. Use the above version numbers as a rough guide.

DavidWanjiru
I suppose, but all the other sites I typically visit that use SSL (twitter, facebook, gmail) are all working fine. This failure is specific to HN as far as I can tell, and I was wondering if something had been done to the HN backend over the last couple of weeks or so that makes it inaccessible to me.