Open versus closed PKI systems

[Nicholas Bohm]

At 16:42 17/05/2001 +0100, Ian BROWN wrote:
>>If businesses find it makes
>>no difference whether they offer certificates or not, presumably they will
>>cease to bother.
>
>Unfortunately, browsers make it rather awkward for the average consumer to 
>connect securely to a site that doesn't have one from an organisation in
their 
>certificate cache. For that reason alone, I suspect most firms will continue 
>paying a few hundred dollars a year to stop their users having to click 
>through 5 or 6 incomprehensible "do you want to accept this certificate" 
>dialog boxes :(

True.  I should have said "If businesses find it makes no difference
whether they offer "secure" sites or not, presumably they will cease to
bother.", which is what I had in mind.

By now the cognoscenti know that if others get hold of their credit card
details (and interception of the session is far from the most likely
source), the resulting risk is to merchants, not customers.

Regards

Nicholas

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