It went all to shambles when Eddy Nigg lost control.
Termination of the certificates business of StartCom
11–20 of 30 posts
Re: Termination of the certificates business of StartCom
#12https://www.startcomca.com/index/News/newDetail?date=2017111... Press release from their website.
And yet they're still advertising EV certificates on the side banner... https://imgur.com/a/x7wwm
Re: Termination of the certificates business of StartCom
#13No doubt victim to the success of LetsEncrypt and good riddance, too. Before LE, Starcom was the only way to get a free and recognized SSL certificate, only it was a pain to use (client certificates) and only worked with specific browsers.
I think this had less to do with Let's Encrypt, and more to do with the fact that StartCom's root certificates were distrusted by nearly all major browser vendors some time ago due to [their parent company's violations of the Baseline Requirements]( https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA:WoSign_Issues ).
They were shady bunch long before WoSign acquired them. I say good riddance to them and their practices.
Re: Termination of the certificates business of StartCom
#14https://www.startcomca.com/index/News/newDetail?date=2017111... Press release from their website.
And yet they're still advertising EV certificates on the side banner... https://imgur.com/a/x7wwm
> "We´ll set January 1st 2018 as the termination date and will stop issuing certificates therefrom."
Re: Termination of the certificates business of StartCom
#15https://www.startcomca.com/index/News/newDetail?date=2017111... Press release from their website.
Interestingly it does send a different message than the mailing list post. While not factually wrong, the press release sounds like the browsers are to blame for the decision (which they definitely are not, see the mailing list posting).
Go back to right after all of this started and read some of their "public communications" (statements aimed at their customers, etc.).
IMO, they tried to make it sound like they were the victim and the browser vendors (especially Mozilla) were "picking on them". They were trying to shirk responsibility and minimize/downplay their own actions and "fuck ups" that got them in the position they found themselves in.
As an outsider reading along on m.d.s.p. as events unfolded, I got the impression that they thought they were going to quickly and easily "fix" everything just by saying "oops, sorry" and making a few changes. As they discovered, it doesn't work like that.
Let this be a lesson to the other CAs.
Re: Termination of the certificates business of StartCom
#16I won't miss them. For many years their certificate registration process was extremely confusing and tedious, but they conveniently charged a lot of money to revoke a certificate (read: it was cheaper to buy a new certificate from someone else like SSLMate for less money than it was to revoke a free certificate with StartSSL).
I once contacted their support and was barraged with unprovoked aggressiveness. Things like asking an innocent question with no snarkiness and getting a response like "Next time you should read the page :)".
Nowadays I use Let's Encrypt and I'm really happy with it. I haven't even thought about an SSL certificate in about a year and all of my sites have auto renewing certificates for free.
If anyone is curious how to set all of that and just want to see how all of the pieces of hosting a secure site come together (from hosting, domain purchasing and automated SSL integration with Let's Encrypt) then you can check out a course I put together that demonstrates everything at https://httpswithletsencrypt.com/.
Re: Termination of the certificates business of StartCom
#17No doubt victim to the success of LetsEncrypt and good riddance, too. Before LE, Starcom was the only way to get a free and recognized SSL certificate, only it was a pain to use (client certificates) and only worked with specific browsers.
Victim of their own violations of the BRs, leading ultimately to the "distrusting" of their roots by the major browsers.
Re: Termination of the certificates business of StartCom
#18It went all to shambles when Eddy Nigg lost control.
And by lost control, you mean sold the company, yes!
Re: Termination of the certificates business of StartCom
#19I worked as Director of Engineering for an investor[1] who helped bootstrap StartCom. StartCom was back then the first successful firm from the Authenticity Institute portfolio. I joined Authenticity because I thought it could really shake up the certification industry.
I quit after 6 months when I learned that the equity based contracts were designed to scam the engineers that I hired. Also I dared to raise concerns over bringing StartCom founder Eddy Nigg back into the company for advise on how to build a sound infrastructure (fit for ETSI & WebTrust certification).
Management there has a thing for "hiring struggling entrepreneurs" and then phishing them for their ideas with promise of equity which is never paid out. There were also a range of other issues such as racist coworkers (which I fired in my first week) and a refusal from the founder to face up to these issues.
One applicant was made promises, then stalled on the contract and when she quit her original job was told on her first day of work that her salary negotiation hasn't even started. I was let go (or I quit with a bang depending who you ask) because I dared to point out they're all crooks.
I personally don't see how trust can every be implemented in systems when it is owned by a company which can be acquired with M&A and the same bad apples who cash out from projects are then investing in similar companies.
Re: Termination of the certificates business of StartCom
#20StartCom will always have a special place in my heart – they're the only company that I had to outright bribe to do business with. On the other hand… I really won't miss 'em.
> StartCom will always have a special place in my heart – they're the only company that I had to outright bribe to do business with.
Can you elaborate on that?