I have to admit that I partly decided to get digital signing because I'm a geek and it seemed like a good thing, but I do also believe it's worth having.
Basically, the point of the certificate I have is so that you can guarentee that mail you recieve from my address really comes from me. The process for getting a personal certificate is not actually that rigourous - IIRC, you just have to prove that you, the applicant, actually control the mail address the certificate is for - but I think that it's at least a start for trusted communication. If you want a more rigourous process (where they check that the person controlling the mail account is actually called what they say they are) you can pay, but I'm not that much of a geek.
You can also use digital signing for encryption of your messages, but I tend not to, because I feel it would give me a potentially false sense of security. Email communication is just not secure and it's important to remember that.
As to whether you should get one, I'd say that to get one of the type I have is basically cost free, so it's worth it. It will allow you to use encryption if you ever feel you need it and the more people start to use this sort of thing as a matter of course, the more we can begin to trust email as a method of communication.
I got mine from http://www.thawte.com - I can't remember exactly where on their site, but look for personal email certificates.
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chiming
Re: I have a question!
Date: October 24th, 2004 02:25 pm (UTC)From:Basically, the point of the certificate I have is so that you can guarentee that mail you recieve from my address really comes from me. The process for getting a personal certificate is not actually that rigourous - IIRC, you just have to prove that you, the applicant, actually control the mail address the certificate is for - but I think that it's at least a start for trusted communication. If you want a more rigourous process (where they check that the person controlling the mail account is actually called what they say they are) you can pay, but I'm not that much of a geek.
You can also use digital signing for encryption of your messages, but I tend not to, because I feel it would give me a potentially false sense of security. Email communication is just not secure and it's important to remember that.
As to whether you should get one, I'd say that to get one of the type I have is basically cost free, so it's worth it. It will allow you to use encryption if you ever feel you need it and the more people start to use this sort of thing as a matter of course, the more we can begin to trust email as a method of communication.
I got mine from http://www.thawte.com - I can't remember exactly where on their site, but look for personal email certificates.