Is there a way to disable certificate validation and/or trust a Self Signed certificate when posting data using REST?

We can successfully send XML files over port 80 (HTTP), but are not able to post them over 443 (HTTPS).  This is a test, so the certificate is self signed and issued to the local server name, not the external URL name, so we know there is an issue, but can these validation settings be disabled?

If not, how can we manually Trust a 3rd party certificate (we would need to reissue the cert using the correct name, but it would still be self signed)?

Thanks in advance!