Q: What about this "dimmeria.com is not a trusted site" warning message?
A: That means that my security certificate is not signed by a "certificate authority". Basically these are big companies like Verisign who charge several hundred dollars to verify that an organization is who they claim to be. If a "certificate authority" does not sign the certificate, data will still be encrypted over the connection. I don't want to pay the money to have a company verify who I am, but I do want to protect my user's passwords.

Q: What does that mean for dimmeria.com?
A: It basically means that all you know about this website is that I'm some guy running a blog - something you'd probably suspect anyway. I'm not making a claim to be some kind of company or institution (where signing is important). I simply allow people to connect to this website securely for the purpose of transferring your username and password and other account information encrypted. It is decrypted on my server. I don't have any claim to make about dimmeria.com.

The only time this might be an issue is if somebody intercepted your communications posing as dimmeria.com to get your password. Hopefully the fact that dimmeria.com is a minnow in an ocean will keep my users safe. 

Q: Why is signing important?
A: Signing is important for things like banks and companies who need to verify they are who they are. Otherwise, any Joe Blow could set up a Bank, Amazon.com, or Ebay knockoff webpage and direct people to it. This does happen anyway, it's called phishing. But a certificate authority enables scrupulous users to make sure they are connecting to who they think they are. Since dimmeria.com is not making any claims, it doesn't need to have a signed certificate. And dimmeria.com definitely doesn't have the cash to lay down for one.

Q: So can I trust dimmeria.com?
A: I'd say so. I will never use anybody's personal information for a nefarious purpose. I want visitors to feel safe signing up for an account at this website, so I will always keep any information you enter confidential. I will never ever look at your passwords or give your email addresses out to anybody.

It's a good practice anyway to create different passwords for different websites. If you use a unique password for dimmeria.com, you have nothing to worry about if it is abused by me, or a cracker who breaks into my webserver.

If you sign up for an account with dimmeria, you should always go into secure mode before entering your username/password. If not, anybody with a packet sniffer in between your computer and mine can read everything you type in, password included (especially easily if you're on a wireless network). The warning message you get about accepting my certificate doesn't mean much in the case of this website. You can enter your username and password in unsecure mode, without getting a warning message and you are more at risk (which is a bit backwards).

If you set up an account with ANY website, including this one - you are trusting them to keep your username and password information safe, regardless of whether or not the data is encrypted. So don't let the warning message scare you. You're a lot safer by using "secure mode" on this website.