HoundsGood: Chronicles of a Virtual Volunteer

Lately, I have been getting an Invalid Security Certificate Error when I have browsed onto a few different sites. Since I am the go-to technology person in the family, error messages that slightly confound me are bound to induce widespread panic to other family members who are just learned about the Internet and are slightly technophobic.

Many folks have mentioned to me that they fear there is spyware attacking their computer when they receive this. Before you panic, please consider the following:

Every site has a security certificate that acts as a “handshake” to let your firewall, browser, etc know that it is a safe site.

The first reason you could be getting an error mentioning the certificate is that your Internet browser’s security is set so high that not even “trusted sites” can function properly. Check to see if your browser is accepting cookies. If not, you can still retain utmost control by requiring a confirmation message so that you may accept or reject every cookie. You may get tired of that after about five minutes, of course.

Then, there is the possibility that you may not have thought of. It is possible that your computer’s date and time clock is set incorrectly. If you have accidentally set your calendar to a year in the past, it may consider that this certificate wasn’t issued yet. It is easy to do, if you are using your computer’s calendar as a tool to count how many weeks you have to your roommate’s wedding and forget to set it back.

Mac computers revert to the date of August 27, 1956 or to January 1,1904. This may alert you that you need to replace your PRAM battery. If this is the case, remember to change the date after you replace the battery.

Random Trivia:

Before, I thought that this 1956 date was Steve Jobs’ birthday. It actually isn’t. Jobs was born in 1955. Ray Montague, designer of the CUDA microcontroller was born on the auspicious date

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