Is there something wrong with forums.freebsd.org?

[Ian Smith]

In freebsd-questions Digest, Vol 577, Issue 5, Message: 20
On Thu, 25 Jun 2015 19:01:44 -0600 (MDT) Warren Block <wblock at wonkity.com> wrote:
 > On Thu, 25 Jun 2015, Quartz wrote:
 > 
 > >>>>> Let me ask this a different way: did they update to something so new
 > >>>>> that it only works on very recent OSs? Like should I test with a
 > >>>>> windows 8 system or something?
 > >>>> 
 > >>>> No. Firefox 38 on FreeBSD 10-STABLE here, works fine.
 > >>> 
 > >>> Well, given that 10.0 came out only a year and a half ago, that
 > >>> doesn't really give me any more info. I'm wondering where the cutoff
 > >>> is for "too old" in this case, assuming that's even the issue.
 > >> 
 > >> It is the browser, not the operating system. Unless you have an
 > >> unpatched openSSL, maybe.
 > >
 > > OK, where does curl fit into that then? Presumably all the versions I have 
 > > access to are too old I guess.
 > 
 > There was a problem curl linking to both the base and ports version of 
 > openssl not too long ago, and consequently breaking other applications.

Sorry, been away, just catching up a bit ..

This seems likely because Quartz' curl (or the way it's setup) doesn't 
support TLS 1.1 or 1.2 for https connections, which forums.freebsd.org 
now requires, to gain higher security rankings and favour from google. 

There was a long and probably considered off-topic thread during May on 
freebsd-security@ about it, in which I was silly enough to participate 
because my (ok, ancient) SeaMonkey can no longer connect to the forums.

Skim thread 'Forums.FreeBSD.org - SSL Issue?' for the gory details:

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-security/2015-May/008350.html

cheers, Ian