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Free SSL Certificate Project
An anonymous reader writes "Do you have a website or run even a web server and want to secure the traffic between your visitors browser and the web site? Did you find out, that in order to make your site SSL aware, you'll need a SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate? Are you also surprised to find out that such a certificate can cost you up to a few hundred dollars, valid for one year only? For what, you might ask yourself? Linuxlookup.com is running a small article on free SSL certificates."
Does anyone even know what a man in the middle attack is anymore? Without certificates (or with easy to aquire certificates) we don't have a way to ensure that someone isn't spying on the encrypted traffic. This service will allow me to register a certificate that looks "just like" the one you expect to get from www.usemycreditcard.com and intercept your confidential details by presenting a key signed with that certificate to your browser. This is already happening with Verisign certificates, a case of them not doing their job, and now StartCom want to make it easier? I guess it doesn't really matter as the vast majority of people are too damn stupid to examine a certificate to ensure it is correct anyways.
How we know is more important than what we know.
You post your public key in your DNS record. DNS already maintains an identity system.
The trick with DK is to get the browser's to fetch the site's public key from the DNS record (it has to do the DNS query anyway) and use that in the handshaking.
Yes, there is the potential for someone to hijack the site, but that is getting more difficult. And, DK would be a free add-on to the DNS stuff you have to do anyway.