[ale] Oct News: StartCom, WoSign distrusted by Mozilla, Google, Apple

Lightner, Jeffrey JLightner at dsservices.com
Mon Jan 30 16:58:14 EST 2017


Self signed certificates may work for purely internal setups but for web services presented to the outside world they seldom do.

If I were to go to emory.edu and it asked me to accept a self signed certificate rather than one from a well known CA I’d probably abandon the connection on the theory it was a spoof.   One doesn’t buy certificates because of a desire to spend money – one buys certificates so others can reasonably trust (based on the CA) the certificate is valid.

Even if I knew and trusted someone at Emory who could provide me with the root certificate on the servers there I’d likely not bother to import it just due to the annoyance factor.   Having to install root certificates for well known CAs is all well and good.  Having to install them for everyone that decides they want to self sign would be an administrative nightmare.

On checking just now it appears Emory uses a specific CA called “InCommon” apparently built specifically for .edu sites.



From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Jim Kinney
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2017 4:30 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!
Subject: Re: [ale] Oct News: StartCom, WoSign distrusted by Mozilla, Google, Apple

All of my certs are self signed from my own CA. If you don't trust them, you don't need to be there anyway.

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