A while back, I brought CAcert to Wouter's attention. CAcert is basically a certificate authority (a trusted third party) based on a web-of-trust. CAcert is community based and membership is free of charge. Users authenticate themselves to other (already trusted) users. When you have a high enough trustlevel, CAcert will allow you to sign your certificates. When the CAcert root certificate is imported in your SSL using application, your certificates will work without any warning about untrusted certificates.
When you have a high trustlevel and pass an Assurer Challenge, you gain the status of Certified Assurer and you can award assurance points to other members. New members gain more assurance points by visiting these assurers.
And so we set of on our road-trip...!
We didn't plan this - we just mailed a couple of assurers in the neighborhood right before we hopped in my car. Wouter had his laptop with mobile Internet and GPS with him so I was the driver and he was the navigator. With every assurer we visited we mailed a couple of others and went on our way again. We started at five o' clock in Deventer, and finished about eleven o' clock in Zwolle. By then we had enough assurance points to become a Certified Assurer. Passing the test was the last hurdle, but since the test isn't that hard we both passed quickly. Now we can create our own signed certificates for https, encrypted mail or code signing for example!
When you got interested in CAcert and want to gain assurance points yourself, don't hesitate to come and visit us here at 2go-mobile! We can award 10 assurance points each. The only thing you need to bring is two valid ID documents with photo, and a print of the WoT form.
Jurrie Overgoor, R&D 2go-mobile B.V.
