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S/MIME Certificates

S/MIME is an e-mail security technology that is supported by most desktop e-mail applications (Outlook, Thunderbird, the Mac OS X Mail application, etc.) without requiring the installation of plug-ins in the way that PGP does. Unfortunately, it is not in general supported by on-line mail services such as Google Mail.

You can use S/MIME to encrypt mail you send to me. You can also ask me to sign e-mail I send to you so that you can verify that it is authentic. To do either of these things, you need to have access to my current S/MIME certificate.

The simplest way to get hold of my current certificate is to ask me to sign an e-mail message to you. Your e-mail application will normally remember any certificates that it sees in incoming mail for later use. In Thunderbird, for example, if you look in the advanced preferences "Certificates" tab, using "View Certificates" and looking under "Other People's" gives you a list of all the S/MIME certificates that Thunderbird has already collected.

Thawte Certificate

I have a thawte Personal E-mail Certificate assured by the thawte Web of Trust. The basic thawte personal certificate verifies only an e-mail address; the Web of Trust assurance means that my certificate includes my full personal name as well.

I am a thawte Web of Trust notary; if you live in the Edinburgh area, I can help you get your own assured personal e-mail certificate.