diff --git a/config.php.in b/config.php.in
index 020769dd..94aed8ca 100644
--- a/config.php.in
+++ b/config.php.in
@@ -226,6 +226,7 @@ $config['TSA_URL'] = '';
 $config['TSA_PUBLIC_KEY_FILE'] = '';
 $config['TSA_START_ID'] = 1;
 $config['TSA_STAMP_REQUEST_UNIT_SIZE'] = 10000;
+$config['TSA_VERIFY_CERTIFICATE'] = true;
 
 $config['DB_DRIVER'] = 'mysql';
 $config['DB_PREFIX'] = '';
diff --git a/util/sign.php b/util/sign.php
index 37a508fb..2903121f 100644
--- a/util/sign.php
+++ b/util/sign.php
@@ -82,9 +82,12 @@ if(MODE == 'time' && $data[COUNT] < 1) {
    exit;
 }
 
-$requestfile_path = TrustedTimestamps::createRequestfile($data[HASH_VALUE]);
-
-$response = TrustedTimestamps::signRequestfile($requestfile_path, TSA_URL);
+try {
+   $requestfile_path = TrustedTimestamps::createRequestfile($data[HASH_VALUE]);
+   $response = TrustedTimestamps::signRequestfile($requestfile_path, TSA_URL);
+} catch(Exception $e) {
+   die("Error: " . $e->getMessage() . "\n");
+}
 
 $data[RESPONSE_STRING] = $response[RESPONSE_STRING];
 $data[RESPONSE_TIME] = $response[RESPONSE_TIME];
diff --git a/webui/system/helper/TrustedTimestamps.php b/webui/system/helper/TrustedTimestamps.php
index 5a218e9f..9dc702e5 100644
--- a/webui/system/helper/TrustedTimestamps.php
+++ b/webui/system/helper/TrustedTimestamps.php
@@ -69,12 +69,17 @@ class TrustedTimestamps
         curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, file_get_contents($requestfile_path));
         curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: application/timestamp-query'));
         curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)");
+        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, TSA_VERIFY_CERTIFICATE);
+
         $binary_response_string = curl_exec($ch);
+
+        $error = curl_error($ch);
         $status = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
+
         curl_close($ch);
 
         if ($status != 200 || !strlen($binary_response_string))
-            throw new Exception("The request failed");
+            throw new Exception("The request failed. Status: $status, error: $error");
 
         $base64_response_string = base64_encode($binary_response_string);