USENIX 2007 Annual Technical Conference, Santa Clara, CA, USA

CAcert Assurance Session

When: Wed., June 20, 2007
8:30 - 9:30pm
San Tomas Room

Where: USENIX Annual Technical Conference
Hyatt Regency Santa Clara
5101 Great America Parkway
Santa Clara, CA

There will be a CAcert Assurance session and PGP/GPG signing session. A special Birds of Feather (BoF) session for assurances and PGTP/GPG signing is being organized for Wed, June 20 from 8:30 - 9:30pm in the San Tomas room. You do not need to be registered for the conference to attend.

CAcert.org is a community driven, Certificate Authority that issues certificates to the public at large for free.

CAcert's goal is to promote awareness and education on computer security through the use of encryption, specifically with the X.509 family of standards. We have compiled a document base that has helpful hints and tips on setting up encryption with common software, and general information about Public Key Infrastructures (PKI).

For the enthusiast looking to dip their toe in the water, we have an easy way of obtaining certificates you can use with your email program. You can use these not only to encrypt, but to prove to your friends and family that your email really does come from you.

For the system administrator looking to protect the services they offer, we provide host and wild card certificates which you can issue almost immediately. Not only can you use these to protect websites, but also email services, to list but a few. Unlike other certificate authorities, we don't limit the strength of the certificates, or the use of wild card certificates. Everyone should have the right to security and to protect their privacy, not just those looking to run ecommerce sites.

**Interested parties can create an account at http://www.cacert.org..., with just a name, password, date of birth, and a valid electronic mail address. That?s all you need to start. To enable additional features on the certificates, a person can be verified (assured) to prove their Identity to others. This is what the assurance session is about. At the "Assurance" you will present at least one valid photo-id card (e.g. driver's license, passport or identity card) in person. The information on your application (CAP) form is checked and verified with the information on the photo-id by an Assurer. The Assurer then assigns points to the user?s account which reflects his level of trustworthiness. As a user receives more assurance points, trust is increased; we call this creating a Web-of-Trust (WoT.)

See http://wiki.cacert.or... if you want to be well prepared.