S/MIME keys (was: What Are Some Good Projects For Novices?)

[Richard Jones]

[This stuff is off topic, and flame-bait, and doesn't belong on the mailing 
list. My post was purely informational. Please let's keep to that theme eh?]

On Thursday 23 August 2001 13:09, Venkat wrote:
> Paul Rubin <phr-n2001 at nightsong.com> wrote in message
> news:<7xd75ovsbk.fsf at ruckus.brouhaha.com>...
> > avenkat at myrealbox.com (Venkat) writes:
> > > > Thawte gives away personal certs. Yes, free. Signed by a real CA. You
> > > > just have to provide them with some personal information. If you're
> > > > dedicated, you  can also get in on their web of trust. That allows
> > > > you to have more personal information present in the cert (like your
> > > > real name).
> > >
> > > Why the hell I need personal cert issued by Thwate/Verisign?
> >
> > So when you send someone signed email, their mail client checks the
> > cert and believes it, rather than throwing a dialog saying it has gotten
> > an untrusted certificate.  Note that those free certs only validate your
> > email address (which of course is enough in many situations) and are
> > only good for a few months.
>
> Use, self-signed certs with life time > 1M years:-)

My Thawte cert is valid for 12 months.


> Why should we pay money to thse fucken commercial CAs.

Uh, did you not see the _free_ part of my post? Calm down eh?


    Richard