On 12/25/10 2:45 PM, Charles Marcus wrote:
On 12/24/2010 12:13 AM, Justin Vallon wrote:
On 12/20/10 7:36 AM, Charles Marcus wrote:
On 2010-12-19 5:45 PM, Justin Vallon wrote:
You can also install a *.crt received as an attachment by opening it.

Yes, but it's a chicken/egg thing... he needed the cert to connect to his company email.
The client doesn't need the certificate to access the server, just to trust it.

Ummm... yes, he/it does... since only secure connections are allowed, the cert *must* be accepted/installed/used *before* access to email is granted.
It sounds like we are saying the same thing here.  When you "accept" an insecure certificate, it is remembered, but not installed (and the OP was getting periodic "trust this?" questions).  If you want to accept it permanently, you need to install a *.crt.

Regardless, it could be a catch-22, in practice.  In order to securely receive the *.crt, the certificate would need to be placed on a site under your control protected by https, which itself could not be self-signed.  If you have a "real" https certificate, then you probably have a "real" imaps/smtps certificate.

Self-signed certs are just as 'real' as those signed by a public CA like Verisign... they just haven't been 'verified' by said 3rd party CA.

There is no reason to 'protect' the cert via https... it is only used to provide the encrypted connection, not proof of identity...

What is the risk / purpose of the certificate?  If a malicious party is able to give you and have you trust a hijacked *.crt file, then they could impersonate/intercept/eavesdrop a presumed secure connection to the target server (given malicious local dns, for example).

If you use iPhone Safari to browse to an http site, then accept and install a downloaded *.crt file, you could be downloading a file from a malicious party.  A subsequent "secure" connection would actually be to the malicious party.  If you download the *.crt file from a secure https site, you have a secure chain of trust, and you can trust the *.crt file has not been altered.
-- 
-Justin
[email protected]


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