Why we disabled SSL and use an SSH tunnel for web site administration

Content managements systems like the one we're using for the web site (Drupal) need to provide a privileged administration interface which you usually want to access securely. Due to the insecure nature of the Internet, it's reasonable to assume your traffic may be intercepted at some point. So how do you prevent that?

Up until recently, we used SSL. You could access the web site from both:

• http://www.turnkeylinux.org/
• https://www.turnkeylinux.org/

Unfortunately, as the site grew in complexity this created a range of subtle but annoying paper-cut type problems.