Let’s Encrypt aims to increase the use of encryption across websites by issuing free digital certificates. The project’s backers include Mozilla, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cisco and Akamai. Digital certificates are used to encrypt data traffic between a computer and a server using SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security) The first certificates will not be valid unless administrators install the organization’s root certificate in their client software. The U.S. government has mandated encryption on all public websites and Web services by the end of 2016.”]