Re: [cobalt-users] Secure Certificate

["Jalon Q. Zimmerman" <jalonz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 5 Dec 2002 22:10:20 -0500, Brian Carpenter wrote
> Dear List:
> 
> I have decided to no 
longer use the services of Thawte for my 
> clients' secure certificate needs. Their prices 
are very high and 
> the process for renewing and obtaining new certificates are 
> 
ridiculous. They have made my attempts at selling an e-commerce 
> solution to my clients a 
nightmare.
> 
> Is there another provider of secure certificates for the RAQ 4 that 
> is 
reasonably priced and the process for obtaining and renewing a 
> certificate a user friendly 
one?

geotrust.com - their QuickSSL product is good. but expensive at $120+ compared to 
below.

instantssl.com - their InstantSSL product is $49/year and works great with Apache 
and the usual set of browsers. They are second-level chain from the GTE Cybertrust CA 
(Baltimore, Inc. or something like that.).


<rant>

I was talking with reps from Comodo 
(instantSSL) and Geotrust today about this very thing.

The Geotrust rep maintained that a 
chained cert makes a quality difference, but he couldnt come up with any hard data other than 
that the main difference is chained cert incompatibility with badly coded enterprise-level 
app servers and other fun things. For the usual apache/browser use - its no different than a root-
level cert.

I have a few friends running instantssl chained certs on Cobalts and Linux 
Apache installs with no problems on the server or client end.

If you think about it, wasnt the 
technology (SSLv3) meant to be chained? I think that the first big CAs in place have done 
everything they can to discourage the concept that chaining should be an easy way to establish 
trust and reputation trees, etc.

</rant>


:)
jalon