I spent way too many hours yesterday trying to figure out why my Google App Engine code couldn't urlfetch from my -rpcssl bitcoin process, so I'm posting this to hopefully save somebody else from the frustration.

I made Bitcoin's HTTPS-JSON-RPC code fussy about what openssl ciphers it supports on purpose; by default, it doesn't accept SSLV1 connections or older, weaker ciphers or hashing algorithms (like single-DES and MD5).

Surprisingly, Google's App Engine urlfetch service currently ONLY supports RC4/DES/MD5/SHA, so, by default, App Engine can't talk via https to Bitcoin.  The workaround is easy (use the -rpcsslciphers= option to override the ciphers bitcoin will accept), and I'll document this on the rpcssl wiki page.

And hopefully Google will get with the program and support better encryption...