Category Archives: Information

General news/information to the CAcert community or about security in general

Infrastructure Services Moved to New Server

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If you have used any infrastructure services (like wiki, blog, translation system, bug tracker) in the last days, you’ve probably noticed that they feel much more responsive. That’s because we have moved those services to a new machine, kindly donated by Thomas Krenn as part of their open source initiative. The donation actually took place some months ago, but we needed some time for preparation so that it’s finally online now. That was about time, because the old machine only had about 1.2 Gigabytes of storage left and those poor services were screaming for help.

Thank you Thomas Krenn for the hardware and also thanks to the admins, especially Jan Dittberner but also all other people involved, for preparing the move.

CAcert with new signature algorithm

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From now on, certificates from CAcert are signed with SHA512 as signature hashing algorithm. Doing so, CAcert improves the security of newly issued certificates over the previously used, usual standard in the industry for certificate authorities. Formerly created certificates remain valid of course. Due to limitations in Microsoft Windows XP without Service Pack 3 the new signatures cannot be validated there. An update to at least Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 3 or better (e.g. Linux) eliminates this limitation.

CAcert cracks record of issuing 1 million certificates

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The community-based certificate authority CAcert issues the 1 millionth certificate.

In the time of insecurity protection of data privacy is particularly important. The best data protection starts where no more data than necessary for service delivery is stored. This is a basic principle for the activity of CAcert. In doing so CAcert performs all important services of commercial vendors: server certificates for protecting web and email connections, client certificates for signing and easy and at the same time effective encryption of email, for authentication and for code signing are certificate options CAcert offers for everybody.

This includes the great work of the community. They help CAcert to issue certificates free of charge and to be an extremely successful internationally active certificate authority. Right now CAcert has issued its 1 millionth certificate with helps users all over the world protecting their sensitive data.

CAcert at the 30C3 (30th Chaos Communication Congress)

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The Chaos Communication Congress is an annual meeting of the international hacker scene, organized by the Chaos Computer Club. It will take place from the 27th untill the 30th of december in the Congress Center Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany. The congress features a variety of lectures and workshops on technical and political issues.

CAcert will be present at the 30C3 (27th – 30th december at the CCH Hamburg). Meet us at the Cryptoparty / NoisySquare assembly in area Garderobe Saal 2. Qualified CAcert assurers will be around.

We have also plans to organize a CAcert project meeting. Check out the CAcert project on the 30C3 wiki or the table of self-organized sessions to stay up-to-date.

 

CAcert server move completed on December 12, 2013

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The move of all existing CAcert servers  to a new smaller rack at the current hosting centre has completed, mostly successful, on December 12 at 23:00 UTC. All main services are available again now, but we still have some smaller problems to sort out, mostly due to the switch-over to a new much more compact firewall with a completely new architecture.

So please bear with us while we iron out the remaining problems, and feel free to report any issues you are still encountering.

Please join me in expressing thanks to the team that worked very hard over four hours after an already stressful day to get this major job completed: Stefan Kooman, Mendel Mobach, Martin Simons.

All CAcert services offline due to move on December 12, 2013

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On December 12 2013, we are planning to move all existing CAcert servers to a new smaller rack in the current hosting centre. In this new rack we will also have a new much more compact firewall installed, and a new energy-efficient infrastructure server.

All good news, but the downside is that all CAcert servers and services will be unavailable for a couple of hours. This outage will take place between 18:00 and 23:00 UTC on December 12, and of course we are striving to keep this downtime as short as possible,

In any case, critical services will be working again on leaving the hosting center, but in the case of unexpected complications, it is possible that non-critical services may only be restored the next day.

See also https://lists.cacert.org/wws/arc/cacert-sysadm/2013-12/msg00000.html for further details. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this major but necessary operation.

ATE Amberg (DE), 2014-01-06

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320px-2010.08.21.175602_Rathaus_Amberg
German Version below

There will be an ATE in Amberg (DE) on 6th January 2014. More details on the wiki.

There are a couple of options to indicate that you are attending:

– Email I will attend ATE-Amberg – Edit the wiki directly

As IanG said: “The ATE or Assurer Training Event is exceptionally recommended for all Assurers, and include parts which contribute directly to our audit. Come and find out how you can also contribute.”

German Version

Am Montag, 6. Januar in den Räumen des ASAMnet e.V. in Amberg, das nächste ATE statt.

• Was hast du auf dem CAP Formular hinzuzufügen, wenn du Minderjährige überprüfst ?

• Warum solltest du dir die 3 Buchstaben: R/L/O einprägen ?

• Wie verhälst du dich, wenn du ein fremdes Ausweisdokument zum erste Mal prüfst ?

Antworten auf diese und andere Fragen erhaltet ihr auf dem Assurer Training Event. Bringt geeignete Lichtbildausweise für Assurances mit.

Ein zusätzlicher Hinweis für ehemalige Tverify/Thawte Leute: Das ATE ist auch eine sehr gute Möglichkeit eure Assurance und Experience Punkte in die Reihe zu bekommen, bevor diese gestrichen werden.

ATE-Amberg findet statt:

  • Montag, 6. Januar 2014
  • ASAMnet e.V.
  • Emailfabrik 1. Stock
  • Emailfabrikstraße 12
  • 92224 Amberg
  • 12:00 bis ca. 16:00 Uhr

Die detaillierte Agenda findet Ihr im Wiki.
Registrierung: Ich möchte am ATE-Amberg teilnehmen

Vielleicht treffen wir uns ja da.

Mit bestem Gruß vom Events Team!

 

IT-SeCX – 8.11.2013

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Der IT-Security Community Xchange 2013 (IT-SeCX 2013) bietet eine Plattform, um sich mit Gleichgesinnten zum Themenkreis rund um die IT-Security auszutauschen!

Die Fachhochschule St. Pölten öffnet am 8.11.2013 ab 17:00 Uhr ihre Türen für die “etwas andere” Konferenz. Sie richtet sich an SystemadministratorInnen, sowie an SchülerInnen und StudententInnen, Lehrbeauftragte, ExpertInnen und Geeks, die sich für den Themenkreis IT-Security in allen Facetten interessieren und eine Plattform suchen, um sich untereinander austauschen zu können. Die Konferenz bietet einen praxisorientierten Informationsaustausch über aktuelle Entwicklungen und Trends im IT-Security Umfeld.

Es erwarten Sie interessante und aktuelle Vorträge, spannende Hands-on Workshops und die Möglichkeit zu persönlichem Networking. Das Veranstaltungsprogramm spannt somit einen weiten Bogen auf – ausgehend von grundlegendem Wissen über präzises Experten Know-How hin zu “Best Practice” mit praxiserprobten Rezepten.

CAcert ist sowohl mit einem Infostand als auch mit einem Vortrag auf dieser Veranstaltung vertreten.

Die Teilnahme an der Konferenz ist kostenlos.

Fragen richten Sie bitte direkt an die Konferenzkoordinatorin,
Frau Mag. Ines Weinauer per E-Mail oder per Telefon +43 (0) 2742 313 228 604,
ines.weinauer@fhstp.ac.at.
http://itsecx.fhstp.ac.at