Web SAMP and HTTPS: What to do?

SAMP, the Simple Application Messaging Protocol, is a standard developed within the Virtual Observatory to allow communication between different software items on the desktop. One popular usage scenario has been enabling one-click transmission of a table or FITS image from a web page, typically an archive search result of some kind, to a desktop application such as TOPCAT, Aladin or ds9. This has worked well for HTTP web pages since the introduction of the SAMP Web Profile in SAMP 1.3, but the Web Profile will not work over HTTPS, which is increasingly being adopted by data providers. This paper presents a summary of the problem and explores some possible ways forward, for which working prototypes have been developed: specify a new HTTPS-capable Profile, use a SAMP-capable helper application, or abandon using SAMP over HTTPS.