https not accepted as proxy target url

[al so <vo...@gmail.com>]

error msg: "secure protocol socket factory may not be used"

Is there a way to connect to target https url via proxy
using commons-httpclient-3.1 (assume upgrade to 4.x is not an option!). You
get the above error msg in ProxyClient.connect():

        if (hostconf.getProtocol().isSecure()) {
            throw new IllegalStateException("secure protocol socket factory
may not be used");
        }