CAcert Organization Validation

Hello,

just wanted to share from FOSDEM:

The kind folks of CAcert talked to me and offered that, as soon as we have the incorporation documents, we could get an organization validation. By that means, one or two of us could create certificates for BoD and MC members directly, without each certificate recipient having to validate manually.

Although CAcert isn't included in many major browsers and mail clients, I think this sounds like a good thing to do, and I'll follow-up as soon as I have details.

Florian

Hi,

Although CAcert isn't included in many major browsers and mail clients,
I think this sounds like a good thing to do, and I'll follow-up as soon
as I have details.

...and I forgot the most important thing to mention: Why we should do so. :wink:

Although it is not enforced, it might make sense to have meeting minutes and official BoD decisions signed in the future, to ensure they are valid, and everyone can verify. For that, it would be desirable for every BoD and MC member + deputy to have their own certificate.

The reason for using S/MIME (X.509) rather than GPG is that

1. LibreOffice can sign ODT with X.509 certificates
2. PDFs can be signed using them as well
3. most mail clients support them out of the box

Florian