links 2016–2023

From 2016 to 2022, I did not maintain a special page of links, as was the norm on the early web. In 2016, the final two links on arts & ego’s traditional page were to Peter Philpott’s modern poetry and Jen Dick’s Paris Readings and Events List, both of which played bucket football.

As time goes by, websites change, or vanish, and corresponding links break. When my verification software reports that a once valid link is broken, I usually substitute a reference to the appropriate internet archive page. This doesn’t always work, but it usually fixes the problem. It does mean that arts & ego is dependent on the wayback machine’s continued existence.

image: tempsford

Until recently, a requirement for HTTPS only links wouldn’t have worked, because many domain suppliers used HTTPS certificates to rip off customers, and many website owners rightly refused to play ball.

Website owners had once to pay those dubious domain suppliers rather a lot of money to buy HTTPS certificates, sometimes hundreds of euros, for something that probably took the suppliers five minutes to prepare (using, for example, openssl). The certificate issuers were supposed to verify the identity of the purchaser, but all many did was ensure payment was receiving through the banking system, and presume the banks would have verified their customer’s information before permitting a payment to be made. The rare honourable and careful domain supplier may even have checked the payer’s name and the supposéd website owner’s name had something in common.

This situation eased when some ISPs started offering free HTTPS links with their hosting service. That’s when arts & ego introduced HTTPS certificates.

Fortunately for everyone, the new(–ish) free and generally recognised let’s encrypt service allows any site to obtain HTTPS certificates for free. They’re not suitable where more than simple website owner verification is necessary, such as when the site processes payments (arts & ego passes that buck to paypal), but it’s sufficient for most.

Let’s encrypt means getting an HTTPS certification no longer requires being ripped off by shady organisations. arts & ego recently started to use let’s encrypt for its own certificates. Indeed, it’s why I believe I can now safely restricted embedded external links to those sites that use HTTPS.