[olug] which digital certificate authority?

[Sam Tetherow]

neal rauhauser wrote:
> 
> 
>    I see that Thawte and Verislime are the most recognized sources of 
> digital certificates but they're quite expensive - on the order of 
> $400/year.
> 
>    instantssl.com has a variety of similar products and they're much 
> cheaper - it appears that the $49/year product will do what I want. My 
> aim is to provide an SSL encrypted web service and possibly secure POP3 
> via SSL.
> 
>   I don't so much need the credibility of Thawte/Verisign, since this 
> is  basically just an enterprise's email server, I'm more interested in 
> the customer paying $49 for a certificate rather than paying for a day 
> of my time to decode how to set up a CA.
> 
>  I welcome any comments on secure http, secure pop3, digital 
> certificates, or how cultivating facial hair could improve my unix skills.
> 
> 
> 
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if you don't want to spend the afternoon to figure out how to do a self 
signed cert for internal stuff then I think the $49/year wouldn't be 
that unreasonable.  But really it doesn't take much to do it, check the 
mod_ssl FAQ for the quick and dirty how to ( 
http://www.modssl.org/docs/2.8/ssl_faq.html#ToC27 )

secure http is a must if you really are using security on your http site 
(more than just for CCs).  Same with secure pop3/imap.  The only mail 
secure mail setup I have done is using Cyrus IMAP/Sendmail.  I haven't 
played with cert authentification although I keep saying I should spend 
more of my copious amounts of free time on it just to say I have done 
it, who knows it may come in useful someday soon <shameless-plug> since 
I'm looking for a job</shameless-plug>.

As for the facial hair, I think that is just a myth propogated by the 
less hygienically inclined guru base. 8^{|}>=  <-- cheap ascii art

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sam Tetherow                           tetherow at nicusa.com
Director of Development
NIC Labs (PSSG)                        http://www.nicusa.com