https in Python?

[Paul Boddie]

Gerhard Häring <gerhard.haering at gmx.de> wrote in message news:<slrnana6iq.t8.gerhard.haering at lilith.my-fqdn.de>...
>
> > s_gherman at yahoo.com (Sorin Gherman) writes:
> > 
> >> Is it possible to handle https using Python's libraries? 
> 
> See my page http://www.cs.fhm.edu/~ifw00065/pyssl/index.html for
> Windows.

See also Robin Dunn's page: http://alldunn.com/python/

I've had some success with the Python 2.1 libraries, and they have the
advantage that you don't need to abandon the usual APIs to use https
with them; that seems to be the case for M2Crypto, for example.

> I wonder why ActiveState doesn't provide SSL support with their Python
> distribution. I thought they want to distinguish themselves by adding
> value ;-)

I can imagine that there's still some paranoia about shipping built-in
cryptography, even in jurisdictions which don't prohibit such exports.
Also, it's additional workload for those responsible, since there are
certain special obligations in providing up-to-date, secure, reliable
implementations of crypto packages.

Paul