Information & Library Services » certificates http://www.bates.edu/ils Sat, 25 May 2013 15:29:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Public-Key Cryptography http://www.bates.edu/ils/2011/how-do-i/secure/public-key-cryptography/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=public-key-cryptography http://www.bates.edu/ils/2011/how-do-i/secure/public-key-cryptography/#comments Mon, 24 Oct 2011 03:45:51 +0000 rrichar2 http://www.bates.edu/ils/?p=1482 Bates College Certificate Authority (CA)

To encourage the use of SSL for encrypting services like web servers and e-mail we have established our own certificate authority (CA).

Uses for Bates signed certificates

A certificate signed by Bates is useful for the following things:

  • Digitally signing e-mail
  • Encrypting e-mail
  • Securing traffic to and from a server (e.g. web server over SSL)

Certificates for e-mail clients

Thunderbird supports the use of SSL certificates for digitally signing and encrypting e-mail.  If you would like to enable this feature in your e-mail client you must request a certificate. Please review the configuration documentation for Thunderbird.

Certificates

]]> http://www.bates.edu/ils/2011/how-do-i/secure/public-key-cryptography/feed/ 0 Requesting Your S/MIME Certificate http://www.bates.edu/ils/2011/how-do-i/secure/requesting-your-smime-certificate/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=requesting-your-smime-certificate http://www.bates.edu/ils/2011/how-do-i/secure/requesting-your-smime-certificate/#comments Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:01:42 +0000 rrichar2 http://www.bates.edu/ils/?p=642
  • Open Firefox
    NOTE: If you have already configured a master password in Firefox, skip to Step 4.
  • From within Firefox select Options from the Tools menu (or Preferences from the Firefox menu if you are using Mac OS X); click the Security tab; Click the Change Master Password button
  • Enter the password, confirm it and click the OK button.
    NOTE: Use the password quality meter to ensure that this is a good quality.
  • Go to: https://transact.bates.edu/crs and log in using your network username and password.
  • Click the Request a certificate button and follow any on-screen instructions.
  • Check your e-mail for instructions from Comodo (the certificate authority we use for SSL certificates)
    NOTE: DO NOT click on the button in the e-mail unless you are positive that doing so will open Firefox.
  • Copy the URL from the Comodo e-mail (the one below the button) into your Firefox Web browser.
  • Enter your e-mail address and the password provided in the instructions from Comodo, then click Submit & Continue, enter your master password if prompted and follow any on-screen instructions.
    NOTE: At this point the new certificate should be loaded into the Firefox cryptographic device. Now you need to export the certificate from Firefox so that it can be imported into Thunderbird.
  • From within Firefox select Options from the Tools menu (or Preferences from the Firefox menu if you are using Mac OS X); click the Advanced tab; click the Encryption sub-tab; click the View Certificates button; click the Your Certificates tab
  • Select your new certificate (the one from USERTRUST) and click the Backup button
  • Name the file client-certificate.p12
  • Enter your master password
  • Choose a strong password for the backup file, click the OK button, and click the OK buttons on the remaining two windows.
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