[kwlug-disc] Cacert.org talk at this month's KW Perl Mongers- Thursday 19 May

[Daniel Allen]

A reminder about a meeting on Thursday the 19th of May, for people
interested in SSL certificates based on webs-of-trust! (Apologies for the
HTML email; please see http://kw.pm.org if you can't read the below in your
email reader).

The location has changed since Behan made his announcement on the 2nd. We've
reserved a larger room. See below for all the details.

**

*ABOUT CACERT*

tl;dr version: *Free two-year renewable SSL server certificates!*

CAcert <http://www.cacert.org/> is an alternative to the commercial
certificate authorities (CAs), allowing users to create free SSL
certificates signed by a trusted CA.

We plan to have an Assurance event at our May kw.pm meeting, Thursday the
19th of May. Come out, learn about CAcert, and we expect that we'll have
enough "assurers" present to get you started (able to make certificates; and
build the web of trust by assuring others).

*To Participate at the Meeting*

To receive assurance points at the meeting, please visit
CAcert.org<http://www.cacert.org/>and make yourself an account, tied
to an email address you will use to
receive assurances at the meeting. Also please bring two forms of government
issued photo ID; such as provincial health card, passport, driver's licence,
etc. (Your ID will just be reviewed, not recorded).

Optionally, bring a laptop and you can follow along to install the CAcert
root certificates in your browsers, and log into CAcert.org to review your
status along the way to being an assurer.

Put your name on the PizzaList
<http://kw.pm.org/wiki/index.cgi?PizzaList>for free pizza (sponsored
by an anonymous rotating donor).

*The Local Network of Trust*

>From the CAcert Assurance
Handbook<http://wiki.cacert.org/AssuranceHandbook2#Some_more_information_on_CAcert>:


   - CAcert separates assurance (confirmation of identity) from the issuing
   of the certificates. Thereby the identity only has to be confirmed once to
   make as many certificates as needed and whenever wanted.
   - CAcert is a "non-profit" community of volunteers. It is independent
   from commercial CAs.
   - Some CAs issue free certs, and some use a Web of Trust, but they tend
   to only issue low-level client certificates, but no server certificates or
   strongly verified certs. These free certs are intended to drive you to their
   CA so they can sell you higher value products. There is nothing wrong with
   that (your supermarket does the same thing) but it might not be appropriate
   to your needs.

 It's important to get a good network of trust built up. The more people you
have who have assured your identity the better.

The Kitchener/Waterloo area has only a few registered assurers. At this
meeting, we can at least double the number of assurers, putting us roughly
on par with Toronto's count of assurers!... And thereby growing the global
web-of-trust.

*Location*

This meeting will be held in MC 5158, in the Math Building. Here's a
map<http://kw.pm.org/maps/finding-math-building.png>.
If you're driving, the recommended parking is in Lot N, $3 pay-and-display.
>From Lot N, it's a short walk along the Ring Road to DC then a right onto
the service road to MC. (There is construction blocking some paths on
campus, marked as hard-hats on the map above).

Hope to see you on Thursday the 19th!





On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 7:24 PM, Behan Webster <behanw at websterwood.com>wrote:

> http://kw.pm.org
>
> Thursday, May 19, 2011
>
> Elbie will speak on CAcert.org <http://www.cacert.org/>, a web-of-trust
> alternative to the commercial SSL Certificate Authorities. Net benefit: free
> SSL server certificates!
>
> Please register for a cacert account in advance of the meeting, and we will
> walk you through the rest. (We are bringing in guest certifiers to make this
> possible). See CAcertMeetingDetails<http://kw.pm.org/wiki/index.cgi?CAcertMeetingDetails>
> .
>
> *When?*
>
> We meet on the third Thursday of the month, unless noted otherwise on our
> mailing list and on the front page of this site. Meetings go from 7 to 9pm
> or so.
>
> *Where?*
>
> In Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario; most often at the University of Waterloo,
> in the Davis Centre room 3323; sometimes, at various pubs in the Uptown
> Waterloo area. Read on for specifics.
>
> *Where at the University of Waterloo?*
>
> Davis Centre is on this map <http://www.uwaterloo.ca/map/map.html>. The
> closest legal parking is 'N' lot to the North.
>
> Davis Centre Room 3323:
>
> From the Ring Road entrance of Davis Centre: Go up two flights of stairs
> from the ground floor. You'll be facing south. Turn around, and head toward
> the north-most cross corridor. 3323 is toward the western end of the
> corridor (toward the math building). It's probably a good idea to check one
> of the many wall maps for an exact location.
>
> Sent from a cell phone, hopefully not in HTML, though I suspect it will
> be...
>
> _______________________________________________
> kwlug-disc mailing list
> kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
> http://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>
>
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