[1371] in IS Home Pages
Re: New Certificate Expiration Page
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Suzana Lisanti)
Tue Jul 11 07:32:09 2000
Message-Id: <200007111132.HAA06382@melbourne-city-street.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 07:32:35 -0400
To: fizz@mit.edu, is-home@mit.edu, "Jeffrey I. Schiller" <jis@mit.edu>,
dennis@mit.edu, Theresa M Regan <TREGAN@mitvma.mit.edu>
From: Suzana Lisanti <lisanti@MIT.EDU>
Cc: web-team@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <39625C99.7025E273@mit.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hi,
I have made a temporary fix to the certificates spotlight, and hope that
the is-home team updates the suggested "certexpire" page for Jeff to
implement.
1. Done: the spotlight points to a new "announcement" page that gives
context and links to the secure page that automatically shows you when your
certificate expires. I didn't point directly to the secure page because we
have so many outside visitors that click on the spotlight, and obviously
they couldn't get to the secure server.
2. Done: I copied Jeff's "certexpire" page and edited it. The new draft
version is at http://web.mit.edu/cwis/announce/certexpire2.html My
updates include highlighting the certificate expiration date in blue so it
stands out, and giving more prominence to the phrase "If you are using
Netscape 4.5 or later you should not need to delete your old certificate."
3. To do: The is-home team or person responsible for this page should
check this draft, copy it and make updates if necessary, then let Jeff know
when he can upload it to nic.mit.edu.
Thanks,
-Suzana
At 10:51 PM 7/10/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Hello, is anyone listening. It would be really cool to repoint the Spotlight
>page, particularly since some of the information on the existing certsexp
page
>is just plain wrong.
>
> -Jeff
>
>Dennis Baron wrote:
>
>> It seems like it would be nice if the current Spotlight pointed to your
page
>> that automatically shows you when your certificate expires...
>>
>> Dennis
>
At 05:52 PM 7/4/00 -0400, you wrote:
>I have a new version of http://web.mit.edu/is/help/cert/certsexp.html.
>This version resides on https://nic.mit.edu/certexpire/ (note the
>"https"). This version is similar to the original except that it tells
>you when your certificate will expire, you don't have to wade through
>the various security dialogs in Netscape.
>
>Also note: I changed the advice on deleting certificates to say that
>this is only necessary with browsers older then Netscape 4.5. This is
>important advice as we do *not* want people to get into the habit (and
>we need to break the habit if they are already in it) of deleting their
>certificates when they obtain new ones or as a "try this to see if it
>works" step.
>
>I say this because I suspect that with Netscape as our new recommended
>e-mail client (see IMAP e-mail project) people will want to use the
>Secure e-mail (S/MIME) facilities that are built in. MIT Certificates
>can support this use. HOWEVER if people do this and receive encrypted
>e-mail, they will lose access to that e-mail if they delete the
>certificate it was sent to.
>
>Now it turns out there are a bunch of issues we would have to deal with
>before we recommend S/MIME to people, however we should at least set the
>groundwork by not recommending that people delete certificates at the
>drop of a hat.
>
>You cannot copy https://nic.mit.edu/certexpire/ and have it work because
>it is an "active" page that depends on code running on NIC to do its
>thing. However if you want me to make changes, all you need to do is
>"Save As" the existing page, make the changes and e-mail me the new page
>(or e-mail me a pointer to it) and I can put it on NIC.
>
> -Jeff
>
>
>
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Suzana Lisanti phone: (617) 253-0100
Director, Web Communications fax: (617) 258-9390
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