Alan Altmark wrote:
On Friday, 05/23/2008 at 08:24 EDT, Rob van der Heij <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Sure, context. If you sit in the broom closet and just show your
hand-written driver license to yourself to practice the movements or
rituals, sure... Useful when you want to learn things or do
experiments.
I know of at least one CA that provides *free* certificates (that
expire in a month) for experimenting. That might be more appropriate
than training folks to click "Yes" to accept self-signed certificates.
Wonder what they will do when you present them a new CA to import into
their browser...
<peeve type=pet>
I agree with Rob on this. The problem isn't technical, it's
psychological. It is my personal opinion that, as IT professionals who
have a *choice*, we should not make choices that promote this form of
social engineering. It's like making the choice to recycle/reduce/reuse:
You can't change the world, but you can change your corner of it.
If you're the only one who will use the self-signed cert, then, as Rob
says, it's a very useful tool. But the instant you involve someone else,
you put *them* at risk. Not with your sincere, well-intentioned,
self-signed cert, but with a Black Hat's cert out on the web.
I will not do online business with a company that has a certificate that
is
a) Self-signed
b) Not for the server I'm talking to
Thomas isn't talking about online business, he's talking about a system
in a broom cupboard where he's the only identified user.
--
Cheers
John
-- spambait
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