Why isn't there an easy to issue Free SSL CA?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4504178

by willtheperson • 14 years ago

2 9 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Where is the SSL Certification Authority that is issuing SSL certificates that are trusted by all browsers without a yearly fee?

It's bad enough that startups differentiate pricing tiers with SSL, why do we make it so user un-friendly to secure their visit?

bigiain2• 14 years ago

http://www.startssl.com/

They've been doing it for years. So long as you get the intermediate CA cert installed on the server, their free certs seem to work fine in as near as practical "all browsers".

prashantmukesh• 14 years ago

Do you have personal experience in using startssl? What are the limitations with its free version? Looking to use an SSL certificate on my website to use it within facebook app.

bigiain2• 14 years ago

No real limitations at all. They're genuine SSL/TLS certs, the "trick" is that they're only validated by checking you can receive mail at an email address at the domain in question, so while the encryption "works" - you don't get much assurance of "authentication" from them. If I can somehow read mail sent to a prashantmukesh.com email address, I'll be able to convince StartSSL to issue me an SSL cert for it... This is mostly why this isn't such a good idea... It also doesn't really matter, from the point of view of apps requiring https connection - even apps/apis smart enough to check certs and their issuing authorities aren't going to know the difference between an SSL cert that required a Dun & Bradstreet check to acquire and one that only needed access to a webmaster@example.com email account.

hackerboos• 14 years ago

One of the only CAs with reasonable prices for EV certs.

Piskvorrr2• 14 years ago

TANSTAAFL; moreover, Crypto Is Hard.

It follows that you can get at best two out of these three: Free, Secure, Easy.

ig1• 14 years ago

How would you verify identity in a free but reliable manner ?

Why isn't there an easy to issue Free SSL CA?

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