Internet Explorer Ebay sign in & Secure Channel Required

[Nick Le Lievre]

Hi I`m running Windows 2000 (no service pack) and Internet Explorer 6
Service Pack 1 - IE6sp1. I`m not running any antivirus or firewall
products in fact its a clean install with Windows 2000 original CD (no
service packs) and the only things I have installed are IE6sp1 and
Messenger 7.0. I`ve not changed any of the Internet Explorer options
they are all default.

My problem is I can go to the www.ebay.co.uk site and search/browse the
listings but when I try to sign in I get Cannot find server The page
cannot be displayed. I`ve tried dialing up to another ISP and its the
same. I know eBay is fine as other people can access the sign in page.
Also I have downloaded Firefox 1.5 and I can access the sign in page
through that.

I prefer Internet Explorer however and would like a fix. I normally run
Windows XP and Internet Explorer and I`ve never had this problem
before. Also I tried uninstalling IE6sp1 and the same problem occurs
with IE5. Also when I try to access;

https://www.onlinebanking.natwestoffshore.com/default.aspx

With Internet Explorer 6 (128bit) I get;

Secure Channel Required (128 bit encryption needed)
This Virtual Directory requires a browser that supports the configured
encryption options.

It works fine with Firefox 1.5 and I never had the problem when I was
running Windows XP & Internet Explorer although I've done some searches
on google groups and I have seen people running Windows XP with the
same problem.

Once again everything is default clean install of Windows 2000. Its
never been on a corporate network where the browser settings may have
been customised etc.

I`ll let you figure it out while I use Firefox 1.5. Now I know why
people berate Internet Explorer it always worked for me since 1998 on
Windows 98/ME/XP & 2000 but I never used eBay or natwestoffshore
between 1998-2001 so I don't know if this problem existed then.

As I say I've used Internet Explorer under Windows XP and never had a
problem accessing those sites and I never changed the default Internet
Explorer options on that either. Its all default straight off the cd.
Good Luck.

 

[Nick Le Lievre]

Also I attempted to install Service Pack 4 express from windows update
and it failed (I had lost allocations on my hard drive) I have since
changed hard drives and used ghost to copy the install to the new
drive. Service Pack 4 appeared to remove itself properly after it
failed to install.

The only thing I can think of is maybe something in the service pack
will fix this problem (although I seen people with XP SP2 with a
similar problem on google) or as my system is vunerable something has
installed on the system messing up Internet Explorer.

I can't install Service Pack 4 as the new hard drive is too small
(1.2gb) it seems unlikely that malware would cause this problem.

 

[Nick Le Lievre]

When I ran Windows XP and accessed those sites I've used no service
pack and service pack 1 (I've never installed SP2 under XP). I ran
Internet Explorer 6 with no service pack. I also used to run Norton
Antivirus 2002/2003 no firewall (except XP built in) and no spyware
removers like Microsoft Spyware or AdAware. This Windows 2000 install
is less then a week old and I haven't been to any new sites where I
could possibly get some malware destructive enough to cause a problem
accessing the eBay sign in and https 128 bit sites with Internet
Explorer 6 SP1 128 bit.

 

[Nick Le Lievre]

I suppose its possible that the old hard drive which had lost
allocation units may have caused some corruption to Internet Explorer
files but that seems unlikely as I`m sure it would be evident by
program errors and I rolled back to IE5 and I have the same problem
with eBay the banking site wouldn't work anyway as IE5 isn't 128 bit
but it should with IE6.

Firefox 1.5 accesses both those sites fine and IE6 accesses pretty much
everything else I use fine. I`ve logged into paypal and nochex with it.
Its not the ISP (56k dialup) as I`ve tried 2 different ones - its not
eBay or the onlinebanking site as Firefox 1.5 works with both. Its not
firewalls or antivirus its not messenger 7.0 as I closed the program
and still the problem.

I`m not going to do a clean install of Windows 2000 on this new 1.2gb
to find out if some files have become corrupted because of the old hard
drive and I can't install Service Pack 4.

 

[Nick Le Lievre]

Oh yeah and after Service Pack 4 failed to install Windows 2000
scheduled a scandisk to scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors
which it did but completed fine. Before I even installed Windows 2000
on it I run format from a Windows 98se boot disk and it reported that
it was trying to recover from lost allocations - so I knew the old
drive wasn't 100% before I installed 2000. I also ran format on this
"new" 1.2gb via windows 98se bootdisk before using Ghost to copy drive
to drive and it completed without any errors.

 

[Nick Le Lievre]

Oh yeah and after Service Pack 4 failed to install Windows 2000
scheduled a scandisk to scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors
which it did but completed fine. Before I even installed Windows 2000
on it I run format from a Windows 98se boot disk and it reported that
it was trying to recover from lost allocations - so I knew the old
drive wasn't 100% before I installed 2000. I also ran format on this
"new" 1.2gb via windows 98se bootdisk before using Ghost to copy drive
to drive and it completed without any errors.

Could it be that the webservers in question aren't recognising my version of
Internet Explorer ? The natwest online banking site says Secure Channel
Required (128 bit encryption needed) when Internet Explorer 6 is 128 bit if
it weren't recognising it (becuase of some issue on my system) then maybe it
would display that message.

 

[Nick Le Lievre]

Could it be that the webservers in question aren't recognising my version of
Internet Explorer ? The natwest online banking site says Secure Channel
Required (128 bit encryption needed) when Internet Explorer 6 is 128 bit if
it weren't recognising it (becuase of some issue on my system) then maybe it
would display that message.

Ok I have found the solution I searched Microsoft and found this KB;

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/164539/en-us

It says "128-bit strong encryption is included in all versions of Internet
Explorer 5.5 and later. If you are running Windows 2000, installing Internet
Explorer 5.5 will not change the current level of encryption on your
computer, and you will have to install the Windows 2000 High Encryption
Pack."

I figured maybe this information was slightly out of date and it might also
apply to Internet Explorer 6 so I downloaded the High Encryption Pack for
Windows 2000.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/recommended/encryption/defaul
t.asp

Now I can access both the natwestonline banking site and eBay sign in. I
will now uninstall Firefox 1.5.

 

[Nick Le Lievre]

It seems I was partially right that installing Service Pack 4 would've
fixed the problem. Service Pack 2 introduced 128-bit encryption

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/servicepacks/sp2/default.mspx#E4

For anyone who is running Windows 2000 (no service pack) and doesn't
want to or can't install the latest Service Pack the High Encryption
Pack is the only option (other then Firefox etc).

 

[Nick Le Lievre]

Its quite surprising that Firefox 1.5 128 bit encryption actually works
under Windows 2000 w/o Service Pack 2 or the High Encryption Pack
installed. I guess its all in with the browser and the Microsoft
encryption updates are applied to the system rather then the browser.
That's why Windows XP supports 128 bit encryption out of the box.

 

[Nick Le Lievre]

Thats not to say that Internet Explorer 5.5 or later 128 bit encryption
is just a marketing gimmick. They are 128 bit compatible but you still
need the 128 bit encryption updates installed on the system or in the
case of Windows XP you just need a 128 bit compatible browser as even
with no service pack the 128 bit encryption is on the system. If I
rolled back to IE5 I wouldn't be able to access the secure sites as the
browser wouldn't be compatible even if the system is. Whereas before
the browser was compatible but the system wasn't.

Firefox 1.5 must load 128 bit system files for SSL and is also 128 bit
compatible.

 

[Nick Le Lievre]

Thats not to say that Internet Explorer 5.5 or later 128 bit encryption
is just a marketing gimmick. They are 128 bit compatible but you still
need the 128 bit encryption updates installed on the system or in the
case of Windows XP you just need a 128 bit compatible browser as even
with no service pack the 128 bit encryption is on the system. If I
rolled back to IE5 I wouldn't be able to access the secure sites as the
browser wouldn't be compatible even if the system is. Whereas before
the browser was compatible but the system wasn't.

Firefox 1.5 must load 128 bit system files for SSL and is also 128 bit
compatible.

 

[Nick Le Lievre]

At first I thought it was 2 problems because eBay sign in page said

Cannot find server The page cannot be displayed

The onlinebanking site said

Secure Channel Required (128 bit encryption needed)
This Virtual Directory requires a browser that supports the configured
encryption options.

Since I can log into eBay now I see it does go to a https:// (but not
straight away) which would explain why it didn't work and gave a
unhelpfull error. If I hadn't tried my onlinebanking site I might never
have known it had anything to do with 128 bit encryption. Luckily most
people nowadays will have either upgraded to XP or have at least 2000
SP2 so the problem won't affect them.

I bet there are other people out there in the world who either can't
use eBay/onlinebanking or have turned to a different browser becuase of
this problem and not looked back.