I will answer my own question so that anyone super searching this might find it useful. The reason the code does not work is because the module Crypt::SSLeay is not installed. I do, however, have two other SSL type modules installed. The LWP is trying to use one of those and failing. That is the reason the "https is not a supported protocol" error does not show up. After installing Crypt::SSLeay on a fresh machine (as to make sure having the other SSL modules is not necessary), the program works fine. The cool thing is, the same code works on several different platforms. Perl Rocks!