Show HN: TinyCert – Certificates as a service
tinycert.org
Show HN: TinyCert – Certificates as a service
1–10 of 24 posts
Re: Show HN: TinyCert – Certificates as a service
#2I was glad to see this was free, as it's not that difficult to do this in a development environment. That said, as someone that once created an OSS tool used by tens of thousands of developers - and had one single donation sent my way - I'll probably donate to the developers.
It's great utilities like this that can help introduce you as a developer in a crowded community.
I believe in karma - put something out there for others and it will come back in droves. So, really cool little tool, thank you! And thanks for making it free, I hope Karma treats you well!
Edit: formatting
Re: Show HN: TinyCert – Certificates as a service
#3"Is it safe? ... Unless you install your own CA certificate in the browser or in the root certificate store of whatever other technology you use, they will complain about not being able to validate the certificates. This does not mean they are unsafe, just that they don't know to trust the certificates."
Not being able to trust that you're talking to who you think to are seems like a serious example of "not safe".
Teaching users to click through the warning screen is a serious anti-pattern; the reason browsers keep making it scarier / harder is to try to stop the security theatre that occurs when using untrusted certs.
Re: Show HN: TinyCert – Certificates as a service
#4This is very much like something I built years ago.
It was just a front end to a back end that didn't exist yet, but it's brought back some nice memories. Thanks!
Re: Show HN: TinyCert – Certificates as a service
#5I was glad to see this was free, as it's not that difficult to do this in a development environment. That said, as someone that once created an OSS tool used by tens of thousands of developers - and had one single donation sent my way - I'll probably donate to the developers. It's great utilities like this that can help introduce you as a developer in a crowded community. I believe in karma - put something out there…
This is not an OSS project though. It's free, but not OSS.
Re: Show HN: TinyCert – Certificates as a service
#6I just wonder why there's zero info about who's behind this.
Re: Show HN: TinyCert – Certificates as a service
#7> The generated keypairs are 1024-bit RSA public and private keys ... This is sufficiently strong for use on the web in the present day
1024-bit RSA certificates are considered deprecated, no longer issued, and if they don't already throw browser warnings then they will soon.
Re: Show HN: TinyCert – Certificates as a service
#8It's nice that this service is trying to make it easier, but why should anyone trust tinycert? How can I trust that tinycert won't issue certificates without my concert? Or sell my private keys to others?
The commands really aren't that complicated. You can (and really should) learn how to do this if you need to issue certificates.
Also, deleting CA's doesn't seem to work.
Re: Show HN: TinyCert – Certificates as a service
#9> The generated keypairs are 1024-bit RSA public and private keys ... This is sufficiently strong for use on the web in the present day 1024-bit RSA certificates are considered deprecated, no longer issued, and if they don't already throw browser warnings then they will soon.
Indeed, this should be changed. The root is 2048 bits, but it's still unacceptable to issue 1024-bit certificates.
Re: Show HN: TinyCert – Certificates as a service
#10"Is it safe? ... Unless you install your own CA certificate in the browser or in the root certificate store of whatever other technology you use, they will complain about not being able to validate the certificates. This does not mean they are unsafe, just that they don't know to trust the certificates." Not being able to trust that you're talking to who you think to are seems like a serious example of "not safe". Te…
Instantly clear to me that this is for internal tooling use only.
"For what would I use TinyCert certificates? Any place you would use (or should have used) self-signed certificates. Don't leave admin panels, such as phpMyAdmin, a CMS or a webmail install without some protection to keep your password from being intercepted. Use them to protect your test and development installations. Use them on your local POP or IMAP servers. Or use them to test your own code involving certificates." - https://www.tinycert.org/faq#use