Re: Anybody know a good FREE certificate service?

From: Pete (noway.jose_at_discard.nit)
Date: 01/27/04 

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 00:09:02 +0000

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 21:44:21 -0000, whilst in NewsFroup
alt.computer.security, "Hairy One Kenobi" <abuse@[127.0.0.1]> articulated
the following sentiments :

>What sort of certificate?
>
>You can self-certify or pay for a site cert, but for email Thawte do their
>"web of trust" (or whatever) thing.
>
>(Basically a bit of a con, IMHO: once you start to look into it, you either
>have to travel the world showing your passport to all and sundry or simply
>pay-up. /I/ certainly wouldn't ascribe any particular trust to such an
>email..).

If you join the Thawte Web Of Trust, you can simply find notaries in your
area who you meet personally. No travelling the world necessary. It's no
different than meeting someone and exchanging PGP keys personally.

You do have to submit some information that some would be unhappy submitting
to get the free email certificate in the first place. To get your name on
it, you meet with notaries in your area, face to face, and they verify that
you are who you say you are, and vice versa. You get so many points awarded
for each notary who verifies you. When you reach the required level of
points, you can then download your new email certificate with your name on
it.

It boils down to how badly you want this kind of validation. You could say
it's not free, as you have to travel to meet people, admittedly not that far
if you check the site properly, but you do have to travel.

It's all explained on the Thawte site, and questions via email are answered
quite promptly.

http://www.thawte.com/html/COMMUNITY/personal/index.html

Pete.

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