When purchasing an SSL certificate at dnsimple I was amazed to discover that by default it’s dnsimple who generates the private key for you. The checkbox that says “I want to provide a custom CSR” is unchecked by default. Not checking it causes dnsimple to generate your private key and a CSR for you. Simple – yes. Secure – no.

Generating a private key for anyone but yourself is a big security no-no. This is common knowledge for people that are selling certificates. Still somehow it’s default at dnsimple.

Please stop doing these stupid things!