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The big problem I see is that SSL requires an unbroken chain of trust all the way along. If I have client-side code connecting to my server, which is then connecting to a third party server, all of those links have to be secured. As someone else pointed out, it`s nice to make your payment processing secure, but at some point the developer also has to step up and ensure their half of the bargain is upheld. If I`m sending credit card details to my backend over HTTP for some reason, no API in the world will stop me.

Even looking at Stripe; they provide a JS library so you can do client-side encryption. However, if you include that JS library on an incorrectly SSLed page, a malicious party could replace it without you knowing. Even with extensive hand-holding, if a user is going to implement SSL badly, there will be security risks.

The only sure-fire solution is for the developers of SSL libraries to come together and implement sane default options, and clear documentation of how not to do things. Looking at the docs for OpenSSL, it`s impossible to easily discern what counts as a sane configuration. The same problem propagates itself into language-specific libraries, where the dev wasn`t quite sure what options to tick to begin with. And so it goes.




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