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Cheap SSL Certificates for Small Websites?
zaqattack911 asks: "In the workplace today it is becoming more and more common for everyday applications to be accessible over the web. Just about all the booking and tracking systems at my job are handled via web-apps these days. Along with this trend, is the increased need for secure transactions over the web. Just about all of the apps on my webserver are going to be SSL only. Some of them are for internal use only, some for the outside internet to use. Is there a cheap alternative to getting your certificates signed? Self signing my certificates works of course, but just about all browsers make a big fuss about it. Verisign asks for about 400$ initially, and 300$ to renew a certificate every year. This seems like a scam to me, and I'd love to know if anyone knows of alternatives out there? Is there a way to get around the certificate signing business? I looked at a company called RSA Security which allows a company to 'self sign' and use their accepted signature. The website doesn't mention the price, and I'm sure it's not very affordable. What else is there?"
a bunch of excellent geeks I know use entrust.
four-oh-four
They charge $199 for certificate, and have a pretty good service. I've been using them for years.
we use them for all of our commercial sites.
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
The stories /. has already had on the topic....
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Why Are SSL Certificates So Expensive? by Cliff with 192 comments on Sunday March 18, @04:48PM
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=
Are FreeSSL Certs Worthwhile? by Cliff with 8 comments on Friday September 07, @11:50AM
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=
You can use it to create certs, and you can even add your organization to the browsers trusted organizations so the users don't get an error message.
Rackshack.net has a link to a $49 QuickSSL certificate. I haven't used them, but it sounds like a good deal.
Title says it all
There aren't really many options, because the browser has to recognize the signer, and the major browsers only recognize Verisign (and Thawte, which is also Verisign).
RSA is the company that started Verisign, so you can guarantee they'll not be of help.
If this is a situation with a limited client base, like a company, you can self-sign and send everyone your CA certificate and have them all import it into their browsers (all browsers support this, I believe). But what a pain.
I wish the news was better, but you're right -- it's a scam. The problem isn't technical; it's political.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
I say the same thing about signing my Java applets. Sun only puts Verisign or Thawte root certificates. So if you want to avoid your customers seeing some redicuouls
"Jesus!! this software is unsigned!!!"
message, then you gotta buy the certz. I am self signing right now. I would love if OSDN could have their own root certificate and let us public folks buy from them. Any malicious signers will be found out quickly so whats the big deal???
I think this signing thing is DRM in action. Nobody is realizing it yet.
You can purchase a ridiculously cheap ($50) 128bit SSL cert, trusted by browsers from http://www.geotrust.com
All you need a valid credit card to get a
cert. The CA key is loaded in almost all of the browsers, the notable exception being Opera.
They do send a 'auth check' by emailing the domain admin contact you can select.
The entire ordering process (including filling out forms) takes less than about 5 or ten minutes.
This should SCARE you if you're relying on the security provided by Veri$ign and the root that ship with browsers. - pablos.
You may find what you're after over at http://www.cacert.com The creator of this website believes that trusting someone should be free, and is doing his best to make this happen.
There is a nice page, http://www.whichssl.com. Through the comparison tables there I found comodo's http://www.instantssl.com. I generated a demo certificate first and after I had no problems with it, I bought it. For $49 a 128 bit, not 40. Recommended.
At $49 a piece for standard certificates they're the cheapest my company could find when we went looking last month. So far I have no problems recommending them.
sig sig sputnik
comes with openssl. It even has a nice perl script to make it easy.
What Verisign and co have that you don't is their root certificates installed with the browsers by default. For internal use you should have no problem using your own certificates. For external use, where an existing business relationship exists (ie you aren't selling to the public, but to people who can trust your cert because they know who you are) it should take little more than a quick explanation.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Sure we all hate VeriSign for all kinds of reasons.
However when you get an SSL Certificate from VeriSign and some of the other Cert signers out there, you are getting two things.
The most commonly understood thing you are getting is the encryption thats automatically accepted by just about any modern browser. However, the reason it's automatically accepted is because VeriSign is suppose to verify the identity of the business. This is why they require a Duns and Bradstreet # (It's a business credit identifier). This way you know when you're going to https://secure.yourdomain.com to enter your credit card information, that you are indeed still on yourdomain.com and that your information is encrypted, and verified to be sent to the company you intend to send it to.
So if all you are concerned about is encryption, just generate your own. It will however throw a warning in just about any browser that the identity of the site can't be verified. Other than that, cost of this service isn't going to drop very dramatically without losing its verification services.
I understand though, that browser warning annoys me too.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
Never heard of 'em. Must be some fly-by-night operation. :-)
There is a way to do this with ASP scripting. A good base to start with can be found at this Microsoft Knowledge base article.
It is a starting point I used to make the root certificate stick. It will present the user with a large-ish alert box asking them if they want to install the certificate. It will only do this once as long as they click 'yes'. Subsequent visits to your site will be automatic from then on out.
This is course is great for internal sites, you can educate your users to click on the box the first time, then they never have to worry again. And they know it's trusted since it came from you. One small caveat, this probably only works on IIS servers and only works in IE web browsers.
- "A non-productive mind is with absolutely zero balance."
- AC
You're going at the problem wrong. Don't worry about getting your clients to accept a self-signed cert, worry about getting them to add your own root certificate to those they trust.
This is actually straightforward - you point them to a URL that returns the root cert, with MIME type application/x-x509-ca-cert, and tell them to accept it for all uses when the broswer pops up a dialog box.
You should then use this root cert to sign your web server certs (and certs for mail servers, databases, whatever). All should be trusted immediately, assuming you have your other ducks in a row. (E.g., you need to have your web server cert's common name resolve to the IP address of the web server.)
It's a bit more work to maintain a mini-CA than to just use self-signed certs, but overall the benefits outweigh the hassles. Many of us are working on JSP tools to operate mid-range CAs, but I don't know how far most are. (The problem is Microsoft's eternally changing standards on how clients generate the cert request on their side - I can handle Netscape/Mozilla with ease, but it seems like every version of MSIE is just slightly different.)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Have your company buy a key, then create signed keys for your domain private domain with it as the issuing key. Nobody will know, as most people still use IE, and it still has that fun bug.
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
.sig: file not found
CA links
CA links
314-15-9265
I couldn't find rackshack listed in any of the "approved" signing sources for mozzila or netscape.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
... and can manage an installation of certificates on all clients, you can create your own certificate authority all by your self.
Here are some *SIMPLE* instructions for building a self-signed CA cert, and then signing SSL certs for servers. Any real implentation should probably be assessed for security (like ca-generation on an isolated machine, etc ...)
That's pretty much it. mix into your IT operations as nessecary
Why aren't you encrypting your e-mail?
Certs prove you are who you say you are, not that you are a reputable company. Otherwise, someone can spoof your IP address and or domain name, collect your clients secure information, and the whole process is encrypted using the attackers keys, not yours.
It is a boot strap problem. Since your clients connect to your over the web, there is no way to prove that you are really you. Instead, you say, my CA (e.g. Verisign) says I am me, and hand them something they can use to verify that info. The browser checks the cert that your site offers, and using the Verisign public key, can ensure that you are actully signed by verisign. The fact that Verisign's public key was shipped with the browser means that the trust chain goes like this:
Install disk (or Download from Mozilla site)->Verisign->You
You can become your own CA, but that borken link is still there.
Another option is to use something like PGP or hand delivered Certs, which would work for an internal website or a limited audience.
Adam
Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
Why Are SSL Certificates So Expensive? by Cliff with 192 comments on Sunday March 18, @04:48PM http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/18/18 55230&mode=thread&tid=93
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Are FreeSSL Certs Worthwhile? by Cliff with 8 comments on Friday September 07, @11:50AM http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/06/0
Poor Cliff. Perhaps he will get an answer this time around.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
We just need the a trusted authority (for certain definitions of 'trusted' and for the definition of 'authority' that is ubiquitously recognized instead of decided by the highest bidders in the browser wars) to make digital assertions.
You'd start with certifying identities: my state might sign a certificate certifying my name, maybe driver's license number, perhaps address and even a photograph. I should now be able to sign e-mails with this now independently of my e-mail address. The resulting signed message could carry whatever signed assertions I wanted to put on it. (Probably my name and maybe my photograph.) I can't forge these, because these components are signed by the state in connection with my identity. A posting to a self-help group might just assert my identity in the form of a photograph and an unsigned nickname.
Taking this a step further, I should be able to use this ID to sign other things, even web sites. This will require changes to the way users perceive an "authenticated" web site. If I go to a bank at www.example.com today, they have a certificate that basically states "www.example.com is Example Bank, and their identity is certified". What my own signed web site might assert is "www.example.com is Joe User". User agents need to give more weight to the name here and less weight to the fact that the domain name matches what's in the certificate.
Extend this now to corporations. When a corporate charter is created, a digital ID for that corporation is created along with it and signed by the state of incorporation. That corporation can now sign assertions like "Joe User is the CEO of Example Corporation".
So now, when Joe User sends an e-mail, he can include this information:
- Joe User (signed by the state of residence)
- (Joe's picture, signed by the state)
- Job Title: CEO (signed by Example Corporation)
At this point, we really have a framework to allow the signing of most any type of assertion. If someone feels that we still need a signed DNS-based model, we'd do this within the DNS framework. I.e. registrars, when creating a domain, would also create a certificate for the domain name created and pass that on to the new owner, who can now sign for sub-domains as needed. When presented with www.sub.example.com, we have "www" signed by "sub" signed by "example" signed by one of the registrars for ".com".Some of these concepts will require a re-thinking of the way we approach authenticated online identities. We need to stop placing so much importance on online identifiers (like domain names and e-mail addresses) and start paying attention to who is making those assertions. I can sign an assertion stating that my e-mail address is 'joe@example.com', but unless that's really my e-mail address, it's not going to do anyone a whole lot of good. If I go around forging e-mails from joe@example.com and including that signed assertion, everyone should be able to take one look at that and say, "Who the hell is this guy claiming to be joe@example.com?". Only the guy with the certificate stating the assertion that he is "joe", signed by "example", signed by a valid registrar for ".com" would be able to say that with any authority.
A lot of this can be done today with signed/encrypted XML, provided we have a common framework to start sharing the assertions.
1) Almost every known root CA targets businesses as their primary customers. The prevailing mentality seems to be that if you want to secure your HTTP server's connections to members of the general public, you must be running some sort of business. Their cost per certificate is nothing; you are paying them not for the certificate itself, but for a certification of your trustworthiness as a business.
But what if I'm offering a free service, which nonetheless requires that my users have absolute trust in their browsing security? What if I'm running a nonprofit organization? If the CAs were truly interested in security, they would offer a low-cost alternative for people who are offering free services, and perhaps a free certificate for non-profit organizations.
You may point out that I can now get a cheap certificate for $50. While this is true, the low price of certificates these days is the result of market pressure. These guys aren't lowering their prices out of the goodness of their hearts, or to help Joe Q. Webmaster who wants a secure website. They're doing it only in response to competition.
2) 'Wildcard' certificates cost an absurd amount of money, usually $500 or more.
Excuse me? The entire premise of the certification, is that Thawte (or VeriSign, or whoever) is certifying my trustworthiness as an organization. As such, it shouldn't matter whether I have one, ten or a hundred DNS names associated with my website and with my organization. By forcing you to buy separate certificates for your web server's DNS name, your mail server's DNS name, your LDAP server's DNS name and others, they are extracting even more money from your wallet. Even if all my services are hosted on the same machine, I must pay hundreds of dollars extra for the privilege of giving them separate aliases. The only other alternative is to host all of my services on one machine, under one DNS name. Thank you so much, VeriSign, for sticking your nose into my system administration.
And, finally,
3) VeriSign, the biggest fish in the pond, has demonstrated on more than one occasion that it is in fact not trustworthy.
Remember the incident involving a falsely-issued code signing certificate for Microsoft? That's right! This supposed paragon of trustworthiness gave some unknown cracker free reign to masquerade as the largest software company in the world. If they're that damned vulnerable to simple social engineering...then why did I pay them $200 or more, again? What exactly were they certifying?
From the start, the entire digital certificate business has been about politics and moneymaking, nothing more. It's a pity that we're forced to live with it.
Er, um, you can. It's trivial to be a certificate authority. You simply need to read a couple of HOWTOs and understand how X.509 certificates work. At MIT for example, we are our own CA. The MIT CA signs all other certifiates, such as certificates for machines that offer secure services, or client certificates for users to authenticate themselves for confidential services. Sure, your browser will claim that it won't recognize the certificate authority. But go ahead and download the root certificate, and tell Netscape you want to accept that certificate authority to certify "Internet sites", and you're all set. You only have to do that _once_. Ever. Just make sure that all your server certificates are signed by the certificate authority.
At MIT we get around the "accepting the certificate authority" problem by re-distributing Netscape with our CA alrady in the database. If your organization isn't big enough for this, then just hand the customers printed instructions on how to do it. Tell them by doing this, you're saving them money, with less costs to pass on.
Commercial Certificate Authorities mean jack shit. All they "certify" is "Joe Schmoe paid me $400, so I will now say that he is who he claims to be." Big fscking deal. Who exactly are they to claim that, anyway? Do they have access to Joe's birth certificate? His passport? His social security record? I had to provide more documentation to get a Massachusetts Drivers License than I did to get a certificate from Verisign. Once the general public realizes this, Verisign will need to find a new source of revenue. I envision a future when certificate authorities can be obtained for a nominal processing free ($30) provided the requestor provides proof of identity (or corporate identity).
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
Our users are easily alarmed, so we need to use a certificate from CA that is fully trusted by all of the common browsers. This pretty much limits you to Verisign/Thawte. If you expect that most users will have mostly upgraded to more modern browsers, then your available choices increase dramatically.
I am currently considering InstantSSL... so far it's taken two days, and no signed certificate, but the price (free trial, $49/year) is right.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Yes, and this is just a preview of the next economic layer that is going to be laid on top of the Internet with the arrival of Palladium. What do you suppose you will have to do to get your content enabled so everybody's PC will be allowed to open it? It's not just a scam, it's maybe the ultimate scam. Inflict the publishing industry's business model on the Internet by taking control of all the hardware connected to it.
These bastards are pure evil.
There is another drawback to becoming your own CA that is much more serious, though. I, as a web user, have no real problem accepting a self-signed certificate for an individual website or two. I'm very very hesitant, though, to accept Joe Schmoe as a CA, as this means I have given him the ability to, for instance, authorize whatever certificate he wants as a valid certificate for my bank's website. This is not cool with me. When I'm sending sensitive data over SSL to my bank (and others), I need to know (as much as possible) that the party on the other end of the transaction is who they say they are. My browser (Mozilla) doesn't offer any way to limit the scope of a CA's power at finer granularity beyond "this certificate can identify web sites."
Almost instant (like 10 minute) issuance.
Trusted by 99% or so of in-use browsers (IE>=5.0, Netscape>=4.x, AOL>=5, Opera>=5).
Works great. Highly recommended.
You might need a certificate signed by a well known CA for your connections from the internet, but for all your backend server you can create your own CA. This will enable you to use a full strenght 1024/128 bit sll for nothing. There is a project called tinyca which enables you to create and signed certificates with your inhouse CA. So you create a CA for your company and add the CA to all your backend server. Once this is done, any certificate signed by your CA will be valid and fully secured.
I have tested it for Apache and Weblogic and Websphere and they work very well.
The idea is that this is the thing the users are going to have to all import into their browsers. You don't want to make them do it more than once. But the whole reason keys expire is that with concerted effort over time they can be factored. So you need to make the key length proportional to the expiration period in at least an attempt to insure that the key will remain secure over its lifespan.
The server cert should have a much smaller key, say a kilobit, because it's used a lot more than the CA cert (validating a server cert will be "hard" because its signed by a 16 kilobit key, but once it's done, the certificate is known-good as long as it remains valid), but because of that it should expire anually. But since you have a long-lived CA cert key, the users won't have to do anything when you do replace the server cert.
Of course, all of this is tempered by how paranoid you need (or want) to be.
I would be very hesitant to add you, someone I do not know or have a particular reason to trust, as a CA. I wouldn't mind accepting your self-signed certificate to do an SSL transaction with your site, but adding you as a CA is a much bigger security risk. If I do that, you can then sign certificates for any site, including sensitive sites like my bank's. Then you, as a potentially malicious CA, can trick me into accepting false certificates identifying my bank's site.
Thus if you don't want to use a certificate signed by the major CAs, then please just self-sign. I have no problem accepting self-signed certificates, but adding random sites you don't know as CAs is a huge security risk that no one should do (so it'd be nice if you didn't require people to do it in order to visit your site).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
it doesn't look like they're offering an RA or subordinate CA, unfortunately.
You didn't look hard enough. The RA comes bundled with the CA (Oops I mean Security Manager). The CA can be configured to be a subordinate with little trouble during installation.
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