Without anyone noticing, Python has been running with the SSL handbrake on for ten years. Guido van Rossum set a debug flag which caused Python to pause for one second each time the SSL_read() function was called when SSL was first introduced. The development team has now removed the brake from the subversion repositories for Python 3.2, 3.1, 2.7 and 2.6.
(from h-online. The bug report is Issue 9075).
