Why is everyone getting missing posting authority errors today?

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Did you get errors earlier with missing posting authority?

If you did, you were among millions who had problems today with an expired SSL root certificate.

WTF is a ssl root certificate?

As you may know, the web uses SSL certificates to secure data from third parties. These certificates were typically sold by SSL providers until 2012 when two Mozilla employees invented a product called Let's Encyrypt. This product was one of the biggest milestones in Internet history as it solved two problems that affects virtually every Internet website and application in the world.

First off, SSL certificates cost money and in fact can get quite expensive. Because of this, many site owners decided not to use SSL to secure their websites.

Google and other companies have been trying to push for an SSL Everywhere Internet where every site is encrypted with SSL security.

Let's Encrypt creates a way for web site owners to get free SSL certificates for life. This drastically increased how many websites used SSL encryption and greatly improved security all around.

Unfortunately there is a core component of SSL security that requires ongoing support, root certificates. Root certificates are hard coded into all web software creating a list of trusted authorities that can handle out SSL certificates. These root certificates don't change very often, but when they do, web browsers and other web enabled software need software updates to reflect it.

In fact, in the past over night SSL providers have paid other established SSL providers to use their root certificate to issue their own certificates. This allowed them to get into the SSL market without established credibility.

On September 30th, one of Let's Encrypt's root certificates was set to expire. This caused a lot of software that used this certificate to fail after this date. Many applications and software uses components that may not have been updated in the last five years to reflect updated root certificates.

On Hive, hiveblocks.com is currently down most likely as a result of this problem. Most if not all of the Hive Engine tribes have been having problems today as a result. If you are running an older browser or even an older mobile phone, you likely have seen problems with other websites as well. In fact, a mobile game I play called Mighty Party had problems as well.

As an end user, all you can do is update your operating system, browser, and any other software you use that connects with the web.

As a developer, check your dependencies and regression test your software to make sure all works as it should.

If you develop on Hive, make sure you have updated HiveJS and other critical packages to the latest version and make sure everything works.



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37 comments
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"Mighty Party"

Sounds like one of the Leisure Suit Larry series :D

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(Edited)

So far today we have had nothing go wrong and no issues for once which actually makes a pretty good day.

And I'm finally back into my s*** coin account and able to play with that even though there's such excessive long refresh times.

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maybe its just @inertia using all those @banjo posting keys he collected secretly (rogue ai) and is using them for a new discord posting rewards bot to farm content on discord on hive?

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Congratulations @themarkymark! You received a personal badge!

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This! I have noticed Hive Blocks was down but didn’t know why! I was gonna post about it but since I couldn’t figure out why I just waited! That explains it

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Someone copied this “mighty party” and didn’t even bother to change the design, just cropped the screenshot into different scenes LOL

img_3051.png

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The game actually doesn’t have that in it. Was a really old screen shot they used for marketing but isn’t really the game.

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Thank you.
It looks like time to update the browser on my phone. !BEER

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I haven't had that error. I suppose that means @PeakD was on top of things?

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I think it had a more current version of HiveJS so it didn't run into the issue.

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I have been able to post through Proof of brain front end by installing key chain App on my phone.

Any one still having the problem can try that.


Posted via proofofbrain.io

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I updated the browser on my phone, but it didn't make any difference.
The Keychain app was already installed earlier.

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Did you browes throught the keychain app?

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So, it's the time to update browsers and softwares for the sake of being active on hive. And if there is someone like me who is so naive to understand these technology issues will surely be afraid of taking the steps.

Thanks for this update. It will surely relieve the tensions of many who faced the problem.

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I was already scared when I saw that I couldn't publish, I thought they had changed my passwords, thanks for the tip Mark.

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Looks like time to update my browsers, Thanks for the information

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Good one,I saw this through @scholaris.pob and it looks so useful too,just which everything is worked on so that what I tagged as normality in my own way can return

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Probably because you're dumb and smell bad.

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At least I'm not a clown and taste funny.

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I have excellent taste, unlike you.

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Hi, @themarkymark
if I update my Firefox browser, Will the problem be solved? others using proofofbrain.io website but I can not because it is showing a message "Missing posting authority".

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Maybe, not sure about Firefox but I would assume so.

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Thanks for this. I had been breaking my head for the past two days to troubleshoot this. It was all good and suddenly started failing. Had absolutely no clue.

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I was using @splinterlands/hive-interface for this project. I have now switched to dHive directly and things are back to normal. This also gave me an opportunity to improve my error handling a little bit.

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Hmm? I would have expected a 495 or a 496 error for SSL? In fact, I'm surprised Google, for example, allows connections to hiveblocks.com given it's configured for SSL but with, as you say, no valid certificate.

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It's not the certificate to hiveblocks.com that is the problem, it is the certificate to the RPC node when accessing via the hivejs module, so you don't really see the SSL error directly.

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WTF!
You don't know how this particular issue kept me out of the hive Blockchain for days, luckily I was able to sign-in with hive keychain app and started posting, it was really frustrating.
Thanks for the explanation @themarkymark now I understand what really happened


Posted via proofofbrain.io

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