why are CAs charging so much for certs anyway? (Re: End of the line for Ireland's dotcom star)

[R. Hirschfeld]

> From: "Dave Howe" <DaveHowe at gmx.co.uk>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 09:37:55 +0100

> Joel Sing wrote:
> > Hi Adam,
> > I believe they have, at least to a large degree. InstantSSL
> > (www.instantssl.com) sell 128-bit certificates for $49USD/annum.
> > Certainly far cheaper than the VeriSign or Thawte equivalent. This is
> > their 'base' level service which comes with a $50USD warranty, email
> > based support and a 30 day refund/reissue policy. One of our clients
> > uses one of their certificates and we haven't had an issue with it.
> What is their browser coverage like?

Their certificates are chained to the GTE CyberTrust root so browser
recognition is probably comparable to that of VeriSign and Thawte, but
they may be affected by what's happening with Baltimore.

Ray


P.S. Poking around a bit on the web I discovered a fascinating battle
raging between Comodo/InstantSSL and GeoTrust/FreeSSL.  They run sites
with similar names (whichssl.com and whichssl.org) that are made to
look like independent comparison guides but which show their own
products most favorably.  The whichssl.com site neglects to include
the less expensive FreeSSL in its comparison.  The whichssl.org site
(also called sslreview.com) does include InstantSSL, but emphasizes
stability concerns (because of Baltimore) and "unethical business
practices" of Comodo, and obscures the connection between GeoTrust and
FreeSSL.  FreeSSL's own site hints that fraudulent spam claiming to
come from FreeSSL is actually from Comodo ("likely to be from one of
GeoTrust's competitors ... messages originated from a UK based ISP").
The two members of FreeSSL's executive team listed on the site both
came from the management team of Comodo (where they were responsible
for InstantSSL), which may have something to do with the rivalry.

In any case, between InstantSSL (UK), FreeSSL (US), and ipsCA (ES),
there is a lot more available in the way of budget certs than I was
aware of.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com