[Discuss] server certificates for the https protocol

[Alan W. Irwin]

Could somebody give me a brief description of what server certificates are
and the practical steps I should take to deal with invalid ones?

For example, I am currently getting the following message from an svn commit
to SF

software at raven> svn commit .
Error validating server certificate for 'https://lasi.svn.sourceforge.net:443':
  - The certificate is not issued by a trusted authority. Use the
    fingerprint to validate the certificate manually!
Certificate information:
  - Hostname: *.svn.sourceforge.net
  - Valid: from Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:15:07 GMT until Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:15:07 GMT
  - Issuer: Equifax Secure Certificate Authority, Equifax, US
  - Fingerprint: fb:75:6c:40:58:ae:21:8c:63:dd:1b:7b:6a:7d:bb:8c:74:36:e7:8a
(R)eject, accept (t)emporarily or accept (p)ermanently?

Is this the fault of SourceForge or Equifax or is there a real security
concern here?

How do I "validate the certificate manually".

Alan
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Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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