[SGVLUG] CAcert Web of Trust?

[Emerson, Tom]

> -----Original Message-----
> [mailto:sgvlug-bounces at sgvlug.net] On Behalf Of Greg Stark
> 
> CAcert.org is providing various certificates, email accounts 
> and client certificates, domains and server certificates, Org 
> client and server certificates.
> 
> Is it real? Anyone care to weigh in on this project? 
> Opinions? Good? Bad?

Hmmmm... Good, bad, or ugly, I went ahead and picked up/validated a
client-level cert, which [and this is the "ugly" part...] I've used to
sign this message (as far as Microsoft is concerned) -- the "gpgol"
plugin doesn't seem to be working so far as signing messages (and/or the
exchange server this routes through may strip the attachment), so I
cannot cross-sign this at the moment.
 
> I heard they registered/verified people at SCALE... Anyone in SGVLUG?

It was kind of late-notice, so I don't know if anyone from our group
managed to get a cert prepared in time to get "assured" at SCALE, but on
the cacert webpage, "find assurers" within 50km reports someone from
OCLUG is doing this [sorry, I've closed the page already]  Within 10km
of L.A./Burbank/La Crescenta, there are about three people listed.  If
you, I, and/or others take the time to get a cert and get it "assured"
by the next meeting, we could start a small hub-of-assurance
ourselves...

(I see that you can even get "assured" via people who aren't part of the
system -- i.e., random lawyers, public notaries, justices-of-the-peace,
& bankers -- but the resulting documents need to be sent to the UK and
processed by hand -- it might take a while...)
 
> Could this be added to our PGP discussion?

I'm sure we could ask Phil what his opinion is, though I wouldn't be
surprised if he has a one-line response along the lines of "it's OK" --
from what I see, it is just another way to do what openPGP does, but
targeted to the windows world, so I'd imagine he'd be all for it...

Tom

Note -- ugly (and potentially oversized) signature block to follow (it
includes the certificate, hence the size -- seems the default is to
include it)