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How not using Internet Explorer put me out of touch and cost me dearly

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Re: How not using Internet Explorer put me out of touch and cost me dearly

#111

Post by tomjen3 »

barista wrote: post #34
tomjen3 wrote: post #13

While that is nice to know, it still smells of Raketeering to me. "that is some nice software you have there, would be a shame if users thought it was dangerous" "pay a little money to one of these approved companies and that warning will go away" If MS was serious about this only being for security they could issue the certificates for free and prove me wrong. On the other hand, why is it that about 20% of users cli…

>> it still smells of Raketeering to me Racketeering indeed! I am sure that was the goal of the SmartScreen filter in IE. Cert vendors and MS must have colluded to add this feature so that developers of all binaries are forced to buy certs. Right?

If not, why not include the option of a free cert for each windows/compiler download?

That way even those who ship free software would sign it and thereby make windows safer.

But of course MS isn't interested in that when they can get paid for it.

Re: How not using Internet Explorer put me out of touch and cost me dearly

#112

Post by tomjen3 »

Karunamon wrote: post #17
evolve2k wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone have opinions on good SSL certificate providers or do you agree with the authors recommendation of http://startssl.com ?

They do what they say they do at a decent price. However, their web interface sucks . Absolutely and completely sucks.

Decent price?

It is at least 55 dolars too high.

Re: How not using Internet Explorer put me out of touch and cost me dearly

#113

Post by tomjen3 »

praxulus wrote: post #56
Karunamon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it still smells of Raketeering to me. Congratulations - you have been enlightened to the state of PKI as it stands today. (I.e. a complete fucking scam).

I'm afraid I haven't been enlightened. How else can the PKI be structured while providing the same amount of security? Is public/private key cryptography itself fundamentally flawed? What's the alternative?

It could be structured based on kittens and be at least as secure. I could steal a guys wallet, copy his id, slip it back or just throw it out, buy a certificate, slip virus laden software and it would get a huge seal of approval.

Re: How not using Internet Explorer put me out of touch and cost me dearly

#114

Post by ryanbrunner »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #108
X-Istence wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does Apple give out free developer id certificates? Last I saw I had to purchase the $99 developer program ... https://developer.apple.com/resources/developer-id/

Okay, "free" was poor phrasing. I should have said "no extra charge". Compare this to the situation described in the original article, where the developer had to buy a separate $59 certificate from a third party, on top of what Microsoft charges you for Visual Studio (which looks to be $499 for the cheapest non-evaluation version).

Express isn't an evaluation version. Also, it's trivially easy to get setup with BizSpark if you're a small startup and get free copies of Visual Studio.

Re: How not using Internet Explorer put me out of touch and cost me dearly

#115

Post by ryanbrunner »

tomjen3 wrote: post #111
barista wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> it still smells of Raketeering to me Racketeering indeed! I am sure that was the goal of the SmartScreen filter in IE. Cert vendors and MS must have colluded to add this feature so that developers of all binaries are forced to buy certs. Right?

If not, why not include the option of a free cert for each windows/compiler download? That way even those who ship free software would sign it and thereby make windows safer. But of course MS isn't interested in that when they can get paid for it.

I'm sure a large part of the reason Microsoft wouldn't offer it for free is that, at the time, any effort on Microsoft's part to enter a new market off the back of an existing market would be scrutinized pretty heavily by the DOJ. They couldn't even add virus scanning functionality to Windows because of anti-trust concerns.

Re: How not using Internet Explorer put me out of touch and cost me dearly

#116

Post by alan_cx »

Just generally, and very simplistically.... buy this or we scare away your customers.

Errr, um, sort of.....well.... Mafia protection racket, yes?

Put it this way. What is the first thing that springs to mind when some one is scaring off your customers demanding, sorry, politely implying a payment to stop?

Yes, yes, yes, I know. Security, user safety, lots of lovely logical arguments for it, Im sure there are plenty. But strip it back to basics and, well, there it is. I presume since MS is a big huge "evil" business which probably funds some political rodent its all cosy and legal.

Its more complicated, right?

Re: How not using Internet Explorer put me out of touch and cost me dearly

#117

Post by michaelt »

tomjen3 wrote: post #112
Karunamon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do what they say they do at a decent price. However, their web interface sucks . Absolutely and completely sucks.

Decent price? It is at least 55 dolars too high.

It could be a bit cheaper, but I'd hope SSL certificate vendors would be putting some work into identity verification. You know, making sure the person with an @gmail.com e-mail is the right person to send the gmail.com SSL certificate to. That could mean manually checking scanned copies of legal documents, making some phone calls, maybe even faxing or sending some things by post. Look at all these requirements Mozilla have to include your CA certificate! http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/certs/policy/Inclus...

$60 sounds a little high to me, but if you think you could do it for substantially less, why not set yourself up in competition with them?

Re: How not using Internet Explorer put me out of touch and cost me dearly

#120

Post by sjwright »

jcbrand wrote: post #87
antidoh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN and all other web sites are there for whatever purposes their users wish to use it for, within the constraints of whatever actions are implemented on a site. This is one of the things that infuriates me about StackOverflow and its army of article closing moderators. A real community will change its practices and perceptions over time according to the needs of the community. If you have a subset of people who decid…

So if the community (through an influx of new users) decides that the purpose of HN is to spread cat pictures and memes, you'll be cool with that?

Welcome to how so many social sites died.
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