[cap-talk] Web introductions, fingerprint service (was: SSL protection racket)

[Karp, Alan H]

Jed wrote:

>  Does that seem reasonable to others?  Something
>  like the above seems to me much preferable
>  to "I'll probably look carefully at their certificate"
>  which to me provides no real assurance/trust.
>  What do others think?

Unfortunately, big companies use lots of servers, and each one has its own public key.  Also, these keys expire once a year or so.  That's why Tyler's petname tool indexes by the organization (O=) and public key of the CA.

________________________
Alan Karp
Principal Scientist
Virus Safe Computing Initiative
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
1501 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, CA 94304
(650) 857-3967, fax (650) 857-7029
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Alan_Karp