From: Roedy Green on
On Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:32:36 -0800 (PST), Andrew Thompson
<andrewthommo(a)gmail.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
who said :

>
>The last time I heard, Thawte was issuing some
>'freemail' certificates (for free).

They are for email signing, not code signing.

When you buy a cert, you are paying for the research they do to ensure
whatever facts are burned into the cert are indeed true.
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com

Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.
~ Virginia Woolf (born: 1882-01-25 died: 1941-03-28 at age: 59)
From: Andrew Thompson on
On Feb 16, 1:07 pm, Roedy Green <see_webs...(a)mindprod.com.invalid>
wrote:
> On Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:32:36 -0800 (PST), Andrew Thompson
> <andrewtho...(a)gmail.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
> who said :
>...
> >The last time I heard, Thawte was issuing some
> >'freemail' certificates (for free).
>
> They are for email signing, not code signing.

I'm almost certain I encountered one JWS based app. that
had the author/vendor listed at the trust prompt as
"Thawte Freemail User" or WTE.

Unfortunately I cannot provide any more details, except
that AFAI(vaguely)R, it was used by someone who used to
be a regular poster around usenet (I cannot afford to
run trusted code from parties that I neither know nor
trust).

--
Andrew T.
pscode.org
From: mikevb on
Thanks for everyone's help and ideas. I've bought a Thawte
certificate, so I really hope that works, given the price (US$299).
Roedy, your pages were very helpful; I had encountered them during my
search, but I think I was having other problems at the time (JDK path
was wrong, so I appeared to be missing some tools I needed). Once I
had everything sorted out, it was fairly easy to create certificates,
and also the CSR that Thawte wanted.

On Feb 16, 3:07 pm, Roedy Green <see_webs...(a)mindprod.com.invalid>
wrote:
> On Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:32:36 -0800 (PST), Andrew Thompson
> <andrewtho...(a)gmail.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
> who said :
> >The last time I heard, Thawte was issuing some
> >'freemail' certificates (for free).
>
> They are for email signing, not code signing.
> When you buy a cert, you are paying for the research they do to ensure
> whatever facts are burned into the cert are indeed true.

I think Andrew's right - I encountered multiple references to this in
my research. I'm not a crypto/certificate/signing expert at all
(clueless in that area really), so I really don't know what's
realistic or not, but several people seemed to suggest it worked.
However, the names on the certificate appeared to be unsuitable for my
use, and also, those certificates are no longer available as of
November 2009. So, no options there really!

Thanks,
Mike
From: Roedy Green on
On Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:52:54 -0800 (PST), Andrew Thompson
<andrewthommo(a)gmail.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
who said :

>I'm almost certain I encountered one JWS based app. that
>had the author/vendor listed at the trust prompt as
>"Thawte Freemail User" or WTE.

I wonder if they figured out some sort of gene splicing to create the
certificate. Maybe he works for a company with a name similar to
"freemail". If you run across it again, please tell us about it. I'd
be interested in figuring out how he did it.

--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com

Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.
~ Virginia Woolf (born: 1882-01-25 died: 1941-03-28 at age: 59)
From: Roedy Green on
On Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:58:41 -0800 (PST), mikevb <falco(a)fenz.net>
wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>Once I
>had everything sorted out, it was fairly easy to create certificates,
>and also the CSR that Thawte wanted.

When I went through the process some years ago, the problem was
totally the lack of documentation. What you actually do is not that
complicated.

I thought it was very peculiar of companies to offer such expensive
products with almost no instructions on what to do to get one or use
it.

I wrote a lot of emails to the various companies prodding them to
improve their on-line docs. Thawte seemed most receptive.

Happily, possibly partly at my urging, the situation has greatly
improved. There is quite a bit to read about certificates, (more than
you wanted to know about penguins) on my site, but if you wade through
it, I think you will have a good shot at buying the right sort of
certificate and get it ordered and installed on the first go.

Get started at http://mindprod.com/jgloss/certificate.html
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com

Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.
~ Virginia Woolf (born: 1882-01-25 died: 1941-03-28 at age: 59)