Thawtefulness
by Chris on Jan.22, 2007, under Personal, Tech
In the interests of fueling the Digital Revolution, I have become a Thawte Notary. This means I can verify that people actually are who they say they are, and get them points towards being able to be issued digital certificates with their full names on them.
It will probably be a real schlep, but once enough people can e-sign their documents, the less paperwork for everyone, and I can say I saved a tree or two.
The way it works is that anyone can sign up to get a Thawte Freemail certificate, but this is pretty much anonymous, besides being able to validate that something came from a particular email address. To get a full certificate you need to present yourself to at least three different notaries, who will stake their life (or at least a very substantial fine) on the fact that you are who you say you are.
Once you’ve got that, you can do all sorts of nifty geeky things like encrypt your email, digitally sign Word docs and even PDFs (if they’re set up right)
January 26th, 2007 on 1:08 pm
hmmm, good stuff
I am currently signing up, you may get a verification request soon