Moving forward with an SSL Co-op
Posted: Wed, 25 June 2014 | permalink | No comments
Since first posting my idea for an SSL co-op a couple of weeks ago, I’ve gotten some positive feedback from people, and further thinking and research has convinced me that it is feasible to at least attempt it.
As a result, I’d like to announce the public unveiling of The SSL Co-op. It is intended to be a commercial, not-for-profit1 organisation that issues widely-trusted certificates to members, for their use or for resale. Eventually, I’d like the co-op to be a root CA in its own right, with its certificate trusted by all the browsers and other X.509-using applications out there, but that isn’t something that’s achievable immediately.
At this stage, the co-op hasn’t been formed, and I’m looking for expressions of interest from individuals and organisations who would be interested in becoming members. If you fit that description, I’d really appreciate it if you could fill out a short survey so I can get a better idea of what sort of scale the co-op will be operating at initially.
This is the first step towards an interesting future, where there is more choice of provider for online identity verification. Exciting times.
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Despite a lot of misunderstanding to the contrary, “commercial, not-for-profit” is not a contradiction. “Commercial” means “doing things for money”, and “not-for-profit” means “not returning a dividend to investors”. In the case of the SSL co-op, it will be providing services to members on a cost-recovery basis, and any excess funds left over from that will be re-invested in the co-op to improve the services provided to members. ↩
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