Philip Brampton, on Jul 11 2009, 09:00 AM, said:
I would like to know more about these certificates.
Could somebody kindly tell me in simple English what exactly certificates are and what they do and how does Comodo make money from them
I would like to make a fair judgement about Comodo because it is basically a good product so i don't understand why Comodo needed to get involved.
Thanks and Regards
Hi Philip,
There are several type of certificates issued by several cert vendors. You will need to visit their website to know exactly what certs they are offering but to make it short: If you want to gain 'trust' from potential buyers and offer a 'secure' a connection because you have a store/shop page in your site because you are accepting credit card payments... you'll likely get a certificate issued by cert vendors. If you want to secure/encrpt your email, you will likely get email cert. And many other certs are offered:
http://www.godaddy.c...ssl.asp?ci=8979
http://www.instantssl.com/ssl-certificate-...cate-index.html
http://www.verisign.com/
A scenario: The malware/rogue domain requested for standard or free certificate. The vendor will verify the domain. Not the owner. If the cert issuer have good method to check whether the site is rogue/malware domain or associated with malware/rogue business, the cert issuer will not issue the cert or will revoke it soon if the cert has been issued already.
The problem with Comodo certs: Many malware/rogue domains are using the free or trial cert by Comodo. They attended by revoking the issued cert by them on malware/rogue domains on previous reports while some they did not. The incident on this thread is that Comodo did not attend on the report. When it was published publicly, they deny the report but later admit that there is a report but was buried down. Iit is maybe true that it was buried down or maybe not true (who knows?). Now, if Comodo's certificate issuer team and malware research team is doing their job to create trust and provide security... they should be very careful in issuing whatever cert to anyone. Other cert vendors should be careful to issue cert too. The problem is that we are seeing many malware/rogue domains continue to use Comodo cert. They are depending on 'reports' instead of doing their job because they are likely to lose from their rival cert vendors if they don't issue a cert as fast as the can. So to issue cert as fast as they could.. they just issue it (whether you're malware/rogue domain or not). If someone report, they will revoke? Why the need to wait for someone to become a victim that they just bought rogue antispyware from a site carrying Comodo cert? Note that some people thinks with "lock" icon in the broser means the site/online store/payment page is to trust. If Comodo or others did not issue the free/trial/standard cert, there won't be lock or https connection. That will prevent people to trusting the page but sorry.... Comodo seems not interested to do what they claim.. creating trust online.
Next:
1. A domain owner will request for free or trial certificate from Comodo or other cert vendors. Example: url.com want to sell antispyware, he need cert so he can use https:// protocol which is secure protocol. That is to start to create 'trust' that the connection to the said domain carrying the cert is 'secure' but it does mean you can trust the site because it's not carrying another type of cert which is the extended validation (to check the person, the company, the installer etc...)
2. Comodo and other cert vendors issues the cert for free or trial or for a fee.
The above is how Comodo and others make money from domain owners.