Is SSL necessary with bitcoin?

[halfawake]

If you were to sell items on a website using bitcoin as your only currency, is SSL necessary?  It seems to me that it wouldn't be since the bitcoin protocol itself enforces the security of the bitcoins, but I'm not totally sure.  I understand the necessity of SSL with credit card sales since you have to ensure the customer's credit card number doesn't get stolen, but with bitcoin, it's only the bitcoins being sent that are at risk.  Are those bitcoins themselves protected by the bitcoin protocol like I think they are, or is SSL still necessary to ensure that they'll be secure?

[01BTC10]

Could be useful to make sure the BTC payment address is not tampered by an attacker somewhere on the network.

[halfawake]

Could be useful to make sure the BTC payment address is not tampered by an attacker somewhere on the network.

Ah, good point.  Good to have then anyway.

[pekv2]

It's overall great to use SSL for every page if it is available. Especially, SSL over secured VPN on a very secured forum like bitcointalk. So many security layers you could utilize it's absolutely insane. It doesn't begin or end with SSL either, the type of browser you have, how you have your browser setup, e.g referrers disabled etc + more. You cannot say the sky is the limit with security layers, it goes beyond that, Mars?.

[Abdussamad]

No it isn't necessary. But your customers might feel safer if you use it. You can get a cheap SSL cert for $10 a year these days so it's probably worth it getting one.

[kodo]

No its not necessary

[halfawake]

No it isn't necessary. But your customers might feel safer if you use it. You can get a cheap SSL cert for $10 a year these days so it's probably worth it getting one.

$10?  The cheapest ones I've seen are $50, aside from the free ones which I'm concerned would just throw up all the warnings that self-signed certs throw up.  Guess I need to do some more searching around.

[01BTC10]

No it isn't necessary. But your customers might feel safer if you use it. You can get a cheap SSL cert for $10 a year these days so it's probably worth it getting one.

$10?  The cheapest ones I've seen are $50, aside from the free ones which I'm concerned would just throw up all the warnings that self-signed certs throw up.  Guess I need to do some more searching around.

http://www.namecheap.com/ssl-certificates/comodo.aspx

[halfawake]

No it isn't necessary. But your customers might feel safer if you use it. You can get a cheap SSL cert for $10 a year these days so it's probably worth it getting one.

$10?  The cheapest ones I've seen are $50, aside from the free ones which I'm concerned would just throw up all the warnings that self-signed certs throw up.  Guess I need to do some more searching around.

http://www.namecheap.com/ssl-certificates/comodo.aspx

Thanks!  Appreciate the link.