A new Dutch foundation, Oophaga, could raise the profile of free digital certificates. The foundation is to provide a legal basis for CaCert certificates meant to strengthen users' digital identity and increase the trustworthiness of e-mail and Internet services.
CaCert's signatures compete with those sold by commercial trusted third parties and certificates authorities, parts of whose certificates are included in many web browsers and other applications. These certificates are based on a open standard protocol, X.509, which helps establish a digital identity.
A CaCert user has to approach at least two to four other CaCert users that verify his or her identity, using for example a driver's licenses or passport. They then use CaCert's web site to add points to the user's certificate.
According to Teus Hagen of Oophaga's founding organisation Nlnet such certificates are useful for those who wish to increase the trust in their e-mails by digitally signing them. Another example would be software developers that use the certificates to increase the trust in the web sites where they publish their plug-ins for Open Source applications like the web browser Firefox or e-mail client Thunderbird.
CaCert began in Australia in 2002. It has so far attracted almost a 100.000 users, mostly from Germany, The United States, the Netherlands and Brazil, many of whom are active in Open Source communities. Hagen: "We expect the number of users to double within the next six months."
As part of the new organisation, the web-based project is hosted by a Dutch Internet provider, BIT. Dutch and international IT companies like AMD, Sun Microsystems and Cisco helped by donating hardware and services. In a press release this week, BIT's Michel van Osenbruggen stated: "These freely available certificates will help make Internet safer."
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