Not oly every used needs software installed, but also they need to manage
key lists ad trust - whereas with commercial CAs trust is inherited from the
CA (which is being regularly audited to make sure process and infrastructure
are secure).

Some people may prefer to be fully in charge of their digital trust but
public PKI is so much easier.

--
Svyatoslav Pidgorny, MS MVP - Security, MCSE
-= F1 is the key =-

"Willem" wrote in message
...
Brian Tillman wrote:
Fredly wrote:

I like the Thawte free option...

I thought the Thawte certificate is free only for personal use and not
for use in a business environment, but checking their web site doesn't
seem to indicate there are any restrictions of that type. It's certainly
an option.

There is also a free GnuPG encryption application that is the Gnu version
of PGP (which was purchased by a company) and there's an Outlook plug-in
for GPG.

For $19,95 a year you can get a Verisign class 1 certificate. They use the
credit card details to 'authenticate' the person. This is a little
better/secure than the Thawte version (only the e-mail address gets
verified).
As far as I know there is no restriction on business use etc.

Drawback on PGP, GPG etc. is that every user needs to have some piece of
software installed. The advantage of x509 certificates is that almost
every e-mail client supports it.

The link is kinda hidden, because they rather sell you their services
http://www.verisign.com/products-ser...dev004002.html

Willem

Fredy, I see it's been a few months since your post however if you're still
loking, check out this option;

For $7/month CipherPass can set you up with a Trusted Third Party digital
certificate with a 3 year expiration. In addition to secure and
authenticated email you also get a file folder encryption (My Vault) check
out the Flash demos on the bottom of the home page. www.cipherpass.com. You
can be set up with all 20 users in less than an hour. Not "pretty good"
it's REAL GOOD Privacy.

CP simplifies the process of getting “military grade�, trusted and legally
binding digital IDs (X.509 certificates) and put them to use immediately.
Within 90 seconds of an end user clicking “download certificate�, the user is
ready to send secure email, encrypt documents, etc. without any configuration
whatsoever by the end user ---- this is a revolutionary concept in the use of
certificates. There are no hardware or software server requirements for our
customers

Jeff


"Fredly" wrote:

We need to encrypt email btween a customer of ours and us. I have been
looking at options. We are footing the bill. It will begin with a single
address here and one customer with three email addressses. We will expand
this to over 20 customers if things go well. This will get expensive so we
want to choose the right solution. We want something that will be cross
platform and non-intrusive for the customer, not to mention easy to set up.

Any opinions?

Thanks in advance for your time!