There's also the part where they say if you spin around counter clockwise and kick your ruby slippers, you'll end up back in Kansas. You'll have to read the fine print for that part.
Frankly the cert business is little more than an expensive scam. Why shouldn't any "trusted 3rd party" be able to issue a cert? The merchant's bank for example for an ecommerce site. Or maybe the BBB. Or alternatively why should it not be centered around the host who handles and is really the one who has ultimate access and in who's trust the merchant or other hosted client has to trust with any security sensitive information? And then it is worth $100-900 a year for this? If anyone should be raking in the bucks for security it should be hosts and not Verisign, Thawte or even GeoTrust. What they offer and what they allude to here and in their marketing is completely illusory in terms of security. If you talk with the average hosted customer they are under the impression that Verisign, Thawte or whoever enables their SSL and provides the encryption/security as some sort of third party application rather than what it really is - A Goodho! usekeeping Seal of Approval that pretty much anyone can get if they pay the money. In short, it's extorsion and if you're in this business you've got to pay it to someone.
In a message dated 9/9/2002 7:37:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Since I am someone who is not fully versed in the business of digital
certificates, could you explain to me this apparent logical fallacy
(quoting from the Thawte promotional blurb you posted):
>One in three Web merchants say that the risk of fraud is their
>biggest problem with online systems, according to a recent study
>by Gartner. [...] When the
>Thawte certificate or site seal is seen on a merchant's site,
>customers can feel confident about doing business or transacting
>with these merchants via the Internet.
The paragraph begins by saying that the merchants fear the risk of fraud,
then goes on to conclude that customers can feel safe when purchasing
from a Thawte-endorsed merchant.
What does that have to do with mitigating the merchant's risk of fraud?
-ben
