Free Certification Authority

[Guy Rixon]

Yes, you're right, they have a self-signed site certificate.  I guess that's
OK in this context (gotta trust them if you use them, so gotta trust their
site cert)... except it would be really sad if A. Ttacker was able to spoof
www.cacert.org and grab passwords.  I'd have gone with a Verisign cert for the
sign-up site.

I'm part-way through their registration process.  When I get a bit further,
they'll tell me where I have to go to register properly.

BTW, they have _two-level_ registration. Basic level, which you do by email
only, gives you a certficate with a generic name. This lets you do digital
signature and encryption, I guess, but doesn't authenticate an individual
identity. It's like our community-membership thing.  The second level, they
call it "assurance", is where you show physical ID and that gets you a
certficate for your personal identity. Interesting that the community
identity has weaker protection than the personal identity.  I guess this is
because in _their_ model, more authorization is by personal identity than by
community membership.

On Fri, 2 Jul 2004, Clive Page wrote:

> On Fri, 2 Jul 2004, Guy Rixon wrote:
>
> >
> > I've just tried the "join CAcert link" at www.cacert.org. My browser (Firefox
> > 0.9) reckons there's something dodgy about the site certificate for
> > www.cacert.org itself.  Not promising.
>
> Perhaps they issued their own certificate to themselves - recursivity may
> imply dodginess in this field, I wouldn't know.
>
> Seriously though, it's the idea that free or at least non-profit CAs might
> be set up that was the interesting idea.  They appear to be based in
> Boston, which as you say isn't the most convenient place to show one's
> passport.  On the other hand it looks as if many people flying in will get
> themselves fingerprinted as well before long.
>
>
> --
> Clive Page
> Dept of Physics & Astronomy,
> University of Leicester,    Tel +44 116 252 3551
> Leicester, LE1 7RH,  U.K.   Fax +44 116 252 3311
>

Guy Rixon 				        gtr at ast.cam.ac.uk
Institute of Astronomy   	                Tel: +44-1223-337542
Madingley Road, Cambridge, UK, CB3 0HA		Fax: +44-1223-337523