Re: [MacGroup] free email (SMIME) certificates

[Bill Rising]

I made a self-signed cert this way, but could not get mail to use it for 
sending mail. Mail instead would complain that my old expired cert was invalid 
because it was expired [1].

I deleted the certificate and then made one more directly by using the defaults 
(which are for an s/mime certificate), opened the certificate and said to trust 
the certificate for s/mime. [2]

The second certificate didn't work, either.

I think I'll give up for a while.

Bill
[1] Deleting the old certificate is not an option, because it would cause all 
emails using it to become unreadable.

[2] This yielded a certificate with (from what I could see) the same properties 
as the longer method. 

> On Jan 14, 2020, at 13:03, Pen Helm  wrote:
> 
> Looks like you can use the Keychain Access app to create your own S/MIME 
> keys.  I think it's going to be less trouble than GPG.  There is a tutorial 
> (slightly dated) at:
> http://www.extinguishedscholar.com/wpglob/?p=1018
> 
> 
>> On Jan 13, 2020, at 10:01 PM, Lee Larson  wrote:
>> 
>> On Jan 13, 2020, at 6:03 PM, Bill Rising  wrote:
>> 
>>> I poked around for a bit and found that everyone was talking about using 
>>> GPGTools. They want $24 for their plugin for Mail (or allow compiling from 
>>> source for free, as long as the user can go into source and find and strip 
>>> the code for the payment). There were people who were using it without the 
>>> plugin, but then it looked like a real hack.
>> 
>> I paid for it. I want to use PGP/GPG so I can control my own keys. I’ve 
>> always been a little leery of the companies that give or even sell 
>> encryption key pairs because in the beginning they do have the keys and 
>> there’s nothing to stop them from keeping them. With the GPG setup, I have 
>> complete control of my keys.
>> 
>>> Do you have something you recommend which would make it (relatively) 
>>> painless? Most of what I say, the NSA can read, and then sell to Google in 
>>> a private-public partnership. Oh wait, is it the other way around?
>> 
>> The most painless method to do secure messaging is probably Apple’s 
>> Messages. But, you need some sort of Apple device at each end.
>> 
>> In my family, those of us with Apple devices use Messages. With lesser 
>> devices, we use GPG. We do this for several reasons: we do transfer 
>> financial information, particularly since some elderly family members have 
>> recently died and left money that must be handled; and, we value our privacy.
>> 
>> L^2
>> 
>> 
>> Lee Larson
>> leelar...@me.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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Re: [MacGroup] free email (SMIME) certificates

[Pen Helm]

Looks like you can use the Keychain Access app to create your own S/MIME keys.  
I think it's going to be less trouble than GPG.  There is a tutorial (slightly 
dated) at:
http://www.extinguishedscholar.com/wpglob/?p=1018


> On Jan 13, 2020, at 10:01 PM, Lee Larson  wrote:
> 
> On Jan 13, 2020, at 6:03 PM, Bill Rising  > wrote:
> 
>> I poked around for a bit and found that everyone was talking about using 
>> GPGTools. They want $24 for their plugin for Mail (or allow compiling from 
>> source for free, as long as the user can go into source and find and strip 
>> the code for the payment). There were people who were using it without the 
>> plugin, but then it looked like a real hack.
> 
> I paid for it. I want to use PGP/GPG so I can control my own keys. I’ve 
> always been a little leery of the companies that give or even sell encryption 
> key pairs because in the beginning they do have the keys and there’s nothing 
> to stop them from keeping them. With the GPG setup, I have complete control 
> of my keys.
> 
>> Do you have something you recommend which would make it (relatively) 
>> painless? Most of what I say, the NSA can read, and then sell to Google in a 
>> private-public partnership. Oh wait, is it the other way around?
> 
> 
> The most painless method to do secure messaging is probably Apple’s Messages. 
> But, you need some sort of Apple device at each end.
> 
> In my family, those of us with Apple devices use Messages. With lesser 
> devices, we use GPG. We do this for several reasons: we do transfer financial 
> information, particularly since some elderly family members have recently 
> died and left money that must be handled; and, we value our privacy.
> 
> L^2
> 
> 
> Lee Larson
> leelar...@me.com 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [MacGroup] free email (SMIME) certificates

[Bill Rising]

OK, thanks for all the info. Using Messages will work for most things.

As for the companies keeping the keys, this was mentioned by one of the pages 
that I had found when looking for free certificates. I had never really thought 
about it, but it should've been something, uh, more obvious.

Cheers,

Bill

> On Jan 13, 2020, at 21:01, Lee Larson  wrote:
> 
> On Jan 13, 2020, at 6:03 PM, Bill Rising  wrote:
> 
>> I poked around for a bit and found that everyone was talking about using 
>> GPGTools. They want $24 for their plugin for Mail (or allow compiling from 
>> source for free, as long as the user can go into source and find and strip 
>> the code for the payment). There were people who were using it without the 
>> plugin, but then it looked like a real hack.
> 
> I paid for it. I want to use PGP/GPG so I can control my own keys. I’ve 
> always been a little leery of the companies that give or even sell encryption 
> key pairs because in the beginning they do have the keys and there’s nothing 
> to stop them from keeping them. With the GPG setup, I have complete control 
> of my keys.
> 
>> Do you have something you recommend which would make it (relatively) 
>> painless? Most of what I say, the NSA can read, and then sell to Google in a 
>> private-public partnership. Oh wait, is it the other way around?
> 
> The most painless method to do secure messaging is probably Apple’s Messages. 
> But, you need some sort of Apple device at each end.
> 
> In my family, those of us with Apple devices use Messages. With lesser 
> devices, we use GPG. We do this for several reasons: we do transfer financial 
> information, particularly since some elderly family members have recently 
> died and left money that must be handled; and, we value our privacy.
> 
> L^2
> 
> 
> Lee Larson
> leelar...@me.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> Posting address: MacGroup@erdos.math.louisville.edu
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Re: [MacGroup] free email (SMIME) certificates

[Lee Larson]

On Jan 13, 2020, at 6:03 PM, Bill Rising  wrote:

> I poked around for a bit and found that everyone was talking about using 
> GPGTools. They want $24 for their plugin for Mail (or allow compiling from 
> source for free, as long as the user can go into source and find and strip 
> the code for the payment). There were people who were using it without the 
> plugin, but then it looked like a real hack.

I paid for it. I want to use PGP/GPG so I can control my own keys. I’ve always 
been a little leery of the companies that give or even sell encryption key 
pairs because in the beginning they do have the keys and there’s nothing to 
stop them from keeping them. With the GPG setup, I have complete control of my 
keys.

> Do you have something you recommend which would make it (relatively) 
> painless? Most of what I say, the NSA can read, and then sell to Google in a 
> private-public partnership. Oh wait, is it the other way around?


The most painless method to do secure messaging is probably Apple’s Messages. 
But, you need some sort of Apple device at each end.

In my family, those of us with Apple devices use Messages. With lesser devices, 
we use GPG. We do this for several reasons: we do transfer financial 
information, particularly since some elderly family members have recently died 
and left money that must be handled; and, we value our privacy.

L^2


Lee Larson
leelar...@me.com





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Re: [MacGroup] free email (SMIME) certificates

[Bill Rising]

Hi Lee,

> On Jan 11, 2019, at 13:23, Lee Larson  wrote:
> 
> On Jan 11, 2019, at 8:39 AM, Bill Rising  wrote:
> 
>> When I tried to do my annual download of an SMIME certificate from Comodo, I 
>> saw that Comodo had changed its name [1] and now charges for its 
>> certificates. Any links to its pages from other articles redirect to pages 
>> which are all about buying antivirus or antispam software.
>> 
>> Has anyone found a replacement? 
> 
> How about 
> ?

Alas, when I went to the above this year, there is a page-not-found error. 
So... it seems that what you said last year [1] was correct, so there is now 
only one place to get the keypair, and it comes with a caveat online.

> I switched over to PGP/GPG instead of S/MIME.

I poked around for a bit and found that everyone was talking about using 
GPGTools. They want $24 for their plugin for Mail (or allow compiling from 
source for free, as long as the user can go into source and find and strip the 
code for the payment). There were people who were using it without the plugin, 
but then it looked like a real hack.

Do you have something you recommend which would make it (relatively) painless? 
Most of what I say, the NSA can read, and then sell to Google in a 
private-public partnership. Oh wait, is it the other way around?

Bill


[1]
> I think the free S/MIME certs are going to get rarer and rarer the closer 
> Let’s Encrypt gets to offering them. The reason
> these free services are going away is because Let’s Encrypt has sucked up a 
> lot of the business from the companies selling SSL certs, so they are trying 
> to make it up elsewhere.


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Re: [MacGroup] free email (SMIME) certificates

[Bill Rising]

Arf. I feel foolish. After searching and finding nothing but people sending me 
to the wrong website, I tried searching with -comodo ... leading to finding 
nothing at all.

Comodo-as-instantssl worked fine,

Thanks,

Bill

> On Jan 11, 2019, at 14:23, Lee Larson  wrote:
> 
> On Jan 11, 2019, at 8:39 AM, Bill Rising  wrote:
> 
>> When I tried to do my annual download of an SMIME certificate from Comodo, I 
>> saw that Comodo had changed its name [1] and now charges for its 
>> certificates. Any links to its pages from other articles redirect to pages 
>> which are all about buying antivirus or antispam software.
>> 
>> Has anyone found a replacement? 
> 
> How about 
> ?
> 
> I switched over to PGP/GPG instead of S/MIME. I think the free S/MIME certs 
> are going to get rarer and rarer the closer Let’s Encrypt gets to offering 
> them. The reason these free services are going away is because Let’s Encrypt 
> has sucked up a lot of the business from the companies selling SSL certs, so 
> they are trying to make it up elsewhere.
> 
> L^2
> 
> PS/ Besides, with GPG I can generate my own keys and they can be made to 
> never expire.
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Re: [MacGroup] free email (SMIME) certificates

[Lee Larson]

On Jan 11, 2019, at 8:39 AM, Bill Rising  wrote:

> When I tried to do my annual download of an SMIME certificate from Comodo, I 
> saw that Comodo had changed its name [1] and now charges for its 
> certificates. Any links to its pages from other articles redirect to pages 
> which are all about buying antivirus or antispam software.
> 
> Has anyone found a replacement? 

How about 
>?

I switched over to PGP/GPG instead of S/MIME. I think the free S/MIME certs are 
going to get rarer and rarer the closer Let’s Encrypt gets to offering them. 
The reason these free services are going away is because Let’s Encrypt has 
sucked up a lot of the business from the companies selling SSL certs, so they 
are trying to make it up elsewhere.

L^2

PS/ Besides, with GPG I can generate my own keys and they can be made to never 
expire.___
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