> Am 28.11.2018 um 00:47 schrieb Alice Wonder <al...@domblogger.net>:
> 
> On 11/27/2018 03:33 PM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
>> On 11/25/18 5:35 AM, Alice Wonder wrote:
>>> The "free for personal" S/MIME from Comodo didn't work. Browser said it did 
>>> but there was nothing to export for me to then import. I suspect it is 
>>> because I used private browser window,
>> Probably, yes.  I've used that service in the past without issue.
>>> I really don't like the idea of a private key stored in browser anyway. And 
>>> it never asked for a password to encrypt the private key
>> Setting a password will protect all of the certificates stored by Firefox.  
>> Select: Preferences -> Privacy and Security -> Security Devices (under 
>> Certificates) -> Software Security Device -> Change password
>> Chrome may have a similar option, but I don't see it and I don't see 
>> documentation for it.\
>>> nor let me specify key strength (only let me choose between medium and high 
>>> - I assume high is 4096 but I don't know, it didn't say)
>> There's very little harm in getting a certificate and examining it to find 
>> out.  You can destroy it later with no ill effect.
> 
> I actually went for a more complex scenario, I've created my own CA complete 
> with CRL.
> 
> It's nice because with S/MIME you really want two certs - one for signing 
> (where ecdsa can be used) and one for when you need to receive encrypted. And 
> I have multiple e-mail accounts I want to do thus with.
> 
> Could have done self-signed too but this at least allows me to revoke if a 
> device like laptop or phone w/ private key is stolen.
> 
> Does mean those who want to confirm my messages have to import my root key 
> but that's for them to decide.
> 
> Web browsers are applications that exist for the explicit purpose of 
> downloading and executing untrusted code. It does not seem like that is a 
> very wise environment to use for generating long term cryptography keys. It 
> really doesn't.
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Well, your own CA’s certificates are basically self-signed.

It’s of course a free country and you can do what you want - but in your case, 
you could just as well use GPG and be done with it. You could place your GPG 
public key where your root-certificate is placed and people could download and 
import that public key.
The point of S/MIME is that there is a central authority to validate the owners 
of the certificates and no peer-to-peer fingerprint checking etc. a la GPG/PGP 
is needed.

It does have better native support in MUAs, I’ll give you that.





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