Feels a bit silly to complain about a free certificate from the CA which probably helped a lot of people to even think about using SSL on their site and if I'm not mistaken it's just 25$ to get a new one. That's even cheaper than getting one from Comodo/etc. They always said that revoking a certificate is not free, that's what you signed up for.
It's a silly complaint. It's also the inevitable result of offering something useful at a "free" price point: it attracts pathological customers --- for instance, the ones who will attempt to organize informal boycotts against you when something about that free offering turns out not to be to their liking.
From a POV of fairness to StartCom, I agree with you, and initially saw it as a ridiculous sense of entitlement on the part of their (non-paying) customers. However as a third party user of the web I am somewhat persuaded by the simple argument that the certs should be distrusted on the basis that they are no longer trustworthy.
Edit: Having thought about it for a minute, a logical consequence of my argument is that all certificates signed by CAs that charge a revocation or reissue fee should be distrusted, which probably makes it not a very reasonable argument. I guess this just leaves us at "Valid SSL certificates are not necessarily trustworthy and we just have to live with that".
The $24.90 fee also applies to paying Class 2 customers. Only EV certificates get free revocation from StartCom.
My own personal blog (not very critical) has a Class 2 certificate, and I decided to switch to a Comodo PositiveSSL ($5/year for 5 years) and not revoke the StartSSL one.
Due to $0 price of certificate I guess many had considered it would be a good idea to have a certificate per service, i.e. a separate one for HTTPS, email, XMPP and so on. I did. The overall thought was that if one service would be compromised, others would likely remain safe - but Heartbleed had completely changed the story.
In my case if I'd revoke all the certificate it would be about $600. Call me names if you want to, but I'm not going to shell out that much. Guess, many others would think the same.
I've updated OpenSSL but if any certs were compromised, they would stay so until they would naturally expire.
StartSSL can make free certificates because the entire system is automated (until you require Level 2 certificates) so the cost of operation is very low.
My guess is that the revocation is not entirely automated. There might also be reasons other than technical why it's not the case. In any case, if they explained the reasons it would put some perspective on their point of view and help people understand.
I think people should clam down and think thoroughly.
I don't know the actual math on the cost for a CA to revoke and re-issue a new certificate. But what if someone finds another critical vulnerability? Do we go back and ask to revoke our certificate again? Free of charge?
Is it necessary to call StartCom evil? Is that even fair?
If you are serving real user data, please get a paid certificate yourself. Why? Because you have slightly better control of your certificate. If you are just running demo or running personal blog then get one from places like gandi.net (1 year at $16.00)
edit: someone mention ssls.com and namecheap.com (resellers) offer cheap Comondo PositiveSSL at less than $10 per year.
@EDIT: Sorry, that was me. I've misclicked the wrong button - meant to upvote, and there seems to be no way to undo. Nonetheless, I disagree.
> Do we go back and ask to revoke our certificate again? Free of charge?
That's right, ask to revoke. In current system, considering the position CAs' are in, trust is primarily their problem. If CA's not revoking the certificate that's compromised, it's CA who's to blame, not server administrators. Not sure about server admins who don't want to pay, but end users (those who see the false green padlock) have full moral right to call such CA "evil".
Heartbleed is a big deal, and there's not a single entity that can bear the burden alone. We've all got to do our parts to revoke the millions of bad certificates, and we've go to be pretty quick about it.
I'm a StartCom customer, and I'm going to suck it up and pay to revoke all of my certificates, including several class 2s and an EV. I'm going to do it because it's better for the PKI than if I don't.
Now, StartCom, It would be nice if you'd help us out, too. This is a mess. Maybe we can get a bit of a break. Maybe you can revoke all of my certs for $25. Or maybe it can be $5 or $10 a piece. We want to put you out of business, but come on, we all know signing certs is tantamount to printing money. If the trust model falls apart, you're out anyway, so how about playing an active role in sorting this out?
Very few people will actually have lost privkeys. Patching your server is a much more important countermeasure than revocation. Certificate revocation in practice works nowhere nearly as well as it does on paper; in fact, it comes dangerously close to not working at all. Read Adam Langley's (jaundiced) take on OCSP for more details.
Long story short: certificate revocation is probably not a big enough deal for Start to somehow be required to rewrite the terms you agreed to when you acquired your certs from them.
None of this has anything to do with StartSSL's trustworthiness as a CA. It is ridiculous to see that people are whining that a company that signed their cert for $0.00 is asking for some money for additional work. The $25 rekeying is a steal for a certificate.
What CA in mozilla/chromium comes closest to StartSSL's $0.00 or $25.00 certificate? That question is not rehetorical, I am genuinely curious what is the second cheapest option for a signed certificate (from a CA trusted by default in mozilla/chromium).
StartSSL's default usage mode is to generate private keys on their website. Yet another horribly insecure system.
I'd much rather that people used self-signed certs (and browsers had certificate pinning) by default, and could then step up to real CA certificates. Self-signed certs provide almost the same amount of trust that StartCom does.
[+] [-] dewey|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Joeboy|12 years ago|reply
From a POV of fairness to StartCom, I agree with you, and initially saw it as a ridiculous sense of entitlement on the part of their (non-paying) customers. However as a third party user of the web I am somewhat persuaded by the simple argument that the certs should be distrusted on the basis that they are no longer trustworthy.
Edit: Having thought about it for a minute, a logical consequence of my argument is that all certificates signed by CAs that charge a revocation or reissue fee should be distrusted, which probably makes it not a very reasonable argument. I guess this just leaves us at "Valid SSL certificates are not necessarily trustworthy and we just have to live with that".
Edit2: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/04/11/heartbleed-cert...
[+] [-] guan|12 years ago|reply
My own personal blog (not very critical) has a Class 2 certificate, and I decided to switch to a Comodo PositiveSSL ($5/year for 5 years) and not revoke the StartSSL one.
[+] [-] drdaeman|12 years ago|reply
Due to $0 price of certificate I guess many had considered it would be a good idea to have a certificate per service, i.e. a separate one for HTTPS, email, XMPP and so on. I did. The overall thought was that if one service would be compromised, others would likely remain safe - but Heartbleed had completely changed the story.
In my case if I'd revoke all the certificate it would be about $600. Call me names if you want to, but I'm not going to shell out that much. Guess, many others would think the same.
I've updated OpenSSL but if any certs were compromised, they would stay so until they would naturally expire.
[+] [-] zimbatm|12 years ago|reply
StartSSL can make free certificates because the entire system is automated (until you require Level 2 certificates) so the cost of operation is very low.
My guess is that the revocation is not entirely automated. There might also be reasons other than technical why it's not the case. In any case, if they explained the reasons it would put some perspective on their point of view and help people understand.
[+] [-] yeukhon|12 years ago|reply
I think people should clam down and think thoroughly.
I don't know the actual math on the cost for a CA to revoke and re-issue a new certificate. But what if someone finds another critical vulnerability? Do we go back and ask to revoke our certificate again? Free of charge?
Is it necessary to call StartCom evil? Is that even fair?
If you are serving real user data, please get a paid certificate yourself. Why? Because you have slightly better control of your certificate. If you are just running demo or running personal blog then get one from places like gandi.net (1 year at $16.00)
edit: someone mention ssls.com and namecheap.com (resellers) offer cheap Comondo PositiveSSL at less than $10 per year.
If you are running open source project, consider https://www.globalsign.com/ssl/ssl-open-source/ and http://www.godaddy.com/ssl/ssl-open-source.aspx.
If you still can't afford one, I really don't know what to say to you at the moment.
[+] [-] drdaeman|12 years ago|reply
> Do we go back and ask to revoke our certificate again? Free of charge?
That's right, ask to revoke. In current system, considering the position CAs' are in, trust is primarily their problem. If CA's not revoking the certificate that's compromised, it's CA who's to blame, not server administrators. Not sure about server admins who don't want to pay, but end users (those who see the false green padlock) have full moral right to call such CA "evil".
[+] [-] ibejoeb|12 years ago|reply
I'm a StartCom customer, and I'm going to suck it up and pay to revoke all of my certificates, including several class 2s and an EV. I'm going to do it because it's better for the PKI than if I don't.
Now, StartCom, It would be nice if you'd help us out, too. This is a mess. Maybe we can get a bit of a break. Maybe you can revoke all of my certs for $25. Or maybe it can be $5 or $10 a piece. We want to put you out of business, but come on, we all know signing certs is tantamount to printing money. If the trust model falls apart, you're out anyway, so how about playing an active role in sorting this out?
[+] [-] tptacek|12 years ago|reply
Long story short: certificate revocation is probably not a big enough deal for Start to somehow be required to rewrite the terms you agreed to when you acquired your certs from them.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] paulirish|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hesselink|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfc|12 years ago|reply
What CA in mozilla/chromium comes closest to StartSSL's $0.00 or $25.00 certificate? That question is not rehetorical, I am genuinely curious what is the second cheapest option for a signed certificate (from a CA trusted by default in mozilla/chromium).
[+] [-] aroch|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yeukhon|12 years ago|reply
$16 per year.
edit
Someone said reseller namecheap and ssls are way cheaper and have the same trust as any CA.
[+] [-] sexmonad|12 years ago|reply
I'd much rather that people used self-signed certs (and browsers had certificate pinning) by default, and could then step up to real CA certificates. Self-signed certs provide almost the same amount of trust that StartCom does.
[+] [-] kmac_|12 years ago|reply
No. AFAIR they use HTML5 <keygen> tag to generate key pair.