Supported Formats

John Clizbe John at Mozilla-Enigmail.org
Thu Nov 20 18:09:26 CET 2008


John Clizbe wrote:
> Carlos Williams wrote:
>> Any advice.
> 
> Short answer: You can't.
> 
> Digital Certificates are X.509. You are using OpenPGP.
> 
> X.509 is the native encryption builtin to web browsers and email apps such as
> Outlook and Thunderbird (S/MIME).
> 
> OpenPGP and X.509 are similar in some respects but mostly incompatible. You
> cannot mix X.509 and OpenPGP in the same mail message. Nor can each make use of
> the other's keys/certificates.

I forgot to add, If you wish to use encryption with Digital Certificate users,
you will need to get at least one of your own.

Free Class I certificates are available from CA Cert[1] or Thawte[2].
TC TrustCenter[3] used to offer free Class 1 certificates but that option seems
to have gone missing from their site.

Beyond those there are numerous Certificate Authorities willing to issue you
certificates, usually at a cost of about $15/yr. Vendors include Verisign (and
its acquisitions Thawte and Geotrust), Comodo, GoDaddy, GlobalSign, Enrust.
There are about 50 trusted CA in most of the popular browsers, many of them will
sell you a certificate.


1: http://www.cacert.org/
2: http://www.thawte.com/secure-email/personal-email-certificates/index.html
3: http://www.trustcenter.de/en/products/tc_personal_id.htm

-- 
John P. Clizbe                      Inet:John (a) Mozilla-Enigmail.org
You can't spell fiasco without SCO. hkp://keyserver.gingerbear.net  or
     mailto:pgp-public-keys at gingerbear.net?subject=HELP

Q:"Just how do the residents of Haiku, Hawai'i hold conversations?"
A:"An odd melody / island voices on the winds / surplus of vowels"

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