CAcert at FOSDEM in Brussels, BE

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CAcert joins the open source event FOSDEM at ULB Brussels, Belgium on weekend February 4th/5th. Our stand is located in the K building on the ground floor. Our staff will happily answer your questions regarding CAcert and its certificates and perform assurances with you. Also for the CAcert fans of you we will bring our polo shirts for purchase.

If you come to the FOSDEM there are two important meetings you shouldn’t miss:

Saturday 16:00 room H.2214 talk “Trust – the root of evil?!”
One of our active members Benedikt Heintel is going to have a talk about trust: In a highly connected world like ours is trust one of the most important assets. But what if the root to trust is not trustworthy? This talk enlightens why most commercial CAs are not trustworthy by default, what we can learn from 2011’s cases like dutch DigiNotar and Malaysian DigiCert, what makes CAcert different, why CAcert is not in the browsers by default and what we do to make it happen.

Sunday 12:00 noon room Ferrer assurance party
Like previous years, participants can get assurances for their CAcert account to issue certificates valid for two years. For the assurance you will need at least one piece of official government-issued photo identification. Please register beforehand on the CAcert website and download the CAcert Certificate Assurance Programme (CAP) form. It is recommended to bring at least ten printed forms with you.

CAcert assurance session at linux.conf.au

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There will be a CAcert assurance session as part of linux.conf.au 2012 in Ballarat, Victoria (Australia) on Tuesday 17 January.

If you would like to get assured or assure others, please come and see us!

– Francois and Jim

Cloaks on IRC (CAcert IRC network and Freenode IRC network)

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I was wanting to see what everyone thought about cloaks on IRC. I am able to set them on the CAcert IRC network to whatever we would like, and as the Freenode CAcert group contact, I can request any cloaks that fit the pattern CAcert/* on Freenode.

Currently we have approximately 5 cloaks on CAcert IRC, and we have 26 CAcert cloaks on Freenode. Most of them are CAcert/Assurer/theirnick, but the problem I’m having is that it’s not really easy to verify if someone is an assurer or not, unless they are listed in the directory and note their IRC nick in there, or unless I can email support and if they would be allowed to tell me if someone is an assurer or not.

Any thoughts on what our policy should be for who can get a cloak, or what format they should be?

Nick

ATE Manchester / Crewe, UK – Sat 14th January

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Much has happened during recent years. The old way of orally-transmitted procedures has now gone, and our rules have been cast into formal policies. New procedures (e.g. the Assurer Challenge) and obligations (e.g. in the CAcert Community Agreement) have been approved.
Continue reading →

CAcert Polo Shirts (stiched)

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CAcert community is producing stiched polo shirts.
There will be a small blue CAcert logo stiched to the left collar and a larger coloured on on the left side of the breast.
The polo shirt will be from Fruit of the Loom in white without a pocket.
It will be available in the sizes M, L, XL, XXL, 3XL.
The price will be 30 EUR each without shipping costs.
Shipping will be around 10 EUR within the EU and 20 EUR to the rest of the world.
We try to find the cheapest shipping method.

To order a polo shirt please send a signed but not crypted email to merchandising@cacert.org with your name and postal address as well as the number and sizes of polo shirts you want.

Events and Sponsoring

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CAcert will be present on the following events:
January 13th – 15th Blacksburg http://wiki.cacert.org/Events/FUDConBlacksburg
January 14th ATE Manchester http://wiki.cacert.org/Events/20120114ATE-Manchester
February 4th -5th FOSDEM Brussels http://wiki.cacert.org/events/FOSDEM2012
February ATE Stockholm scheduled

Along with these events CAcert has lounged an affiliate program with booking.com.
The affiliate program works as followed. If someone uses the link for booking.com from our event pages and he books and uses a hotel, CAcert gets a provision for this booking. The price for the hotel stays the same but you support For more see http://wiki.cacert.org/CAcertInc/Affiliates or on the event pages.

New Board of Directors constituted

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After the election of the new board on 2011-11-27 on the Annual General Meeting the new board has now constituted itself. Due to the fact that not enough australian board members were elected a Sub Committee was set up according to CAcert Inc. rules.

The current CAcert Inc. Committee – the Board of Directors – consists of

  • Piers Lauder, AU, President
  • Dirk Astrath, DE, Vice President
  • Jeffrey Frederick, US, Treasurer
  • Tomáš Trnka, CZ, Secretary
  • Raoul Xavier Boerlage, NL, member
  • Ian Grigg, AU, member
  • Kevin Dawson, AU, member

The CAcert Inc. Sub Committee consists of all the members of the CAcert Inc. Committee including the elected members

  • Michael Tänzer, DE, member
  • Werner Dworak, DE, member

Both are supporting the Board of Directors, participate in decisions and carry motions.

Kevin Dawson was appointed as Public Officer. He is the Association representative at the Australian Office of Fair Trading and is the co-acting Treasurer on behalf of CAcert Inc. President.

Strong Concensus on CPS #7.1.2 “Certificate Extensions” adjustments

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Policy group voted within the last 2 weeks for the proposed p20111113 CPS #7.1.2 “Certificate Extensions” adjustments with a strong concensus for the proposal.
Continue reading →

CAcert AGM and New Board, Rules changes accepted

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On 2011-11-27 CAcert held its Annual General Meeting. Minutes will be published soon on the wiki.

A new board was elected. We are happy to announce the new CAcert board

  • Piers Lauder, AU
  • Dirk Astrath, DE
  • Jeffrey Frederick, US
  • Michael Tänzer, DE
  • Raoul Xavier Boerlage, NL
  • Werner Dworak, DE
  • Tomas Trnka, CZ

During the AGM CAcert’s annual report and the financial report was presented and accepted by the membership. It shows many things happened at CAcert during the last year and is worth reading to get an impression of CAcert’s progress during the last time.

During the AGM, 3 special resolutions were presented, first to bring CAcert Inc rules in compliance with Association Act 2009 and 2 more rules changes, that fixed a minor bug. The rule changes have been accepted in a strong concensus.

A big thank you to all people volunteering and helping to achieve this successful result. CAcert is dependent on many volunteers and is looking forward for your help to achieve such a good result for the coming year.

Changes at CAcert: New Points Counting

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We are proud to announce recent changes in the CAcert website. Although there have been quite a few changes in the past, mostly they have happened “behind the scenes”. Today we can announce more visible changes:

1. Change to My Points page
The Point list in the menu under “My Details” -> “My Points” will be enhanced. Main Point is: The Assurance Points received and given will be allocated in a new way. The crucial point was the working total of Assurance Points allocated to the Assuree. Previously, only the beneficial points were displayed, and points allocated in Assurances were rounded down if in excess of 100.

From now on, all allocated points are displayed. The Assuree can still only benefit up to a maximum of 100 Assurance Points. As an Assurer, the member may benefit up to a maximum of 50 Experience Points by assuring other members. The new list will display the calculation much more transparently. Please have a look at the new points listing at https://www.cacert.org/wot.php?id=15

2. Tverify points revoked
Along with this change, all points allocated under the old Tverify program will be revoked in the near future. The Tverify program to transfer points allocated by Thawte Notaries across to CAcert members was stopped sometime ago. Tverify points cannot be verified by CAcert (for example, they cannot be distinguished between the different Notaries), and therefore, these points will be revoked soon. If you are unsure about your level of assurance, we recommend that you seek further assurance from CAcert Assurers.

By performing these measures, we take another step towards a successful audit. Passing the audit is an important building block to be accepted as a CA in the internet browsers.

3. Check your Alert Settings
We would like to advise you of another important fact: In the future, we intend to send you further newsletters with our most important news, every few months. This present newsletter is being sent to all CAcert Community Member in a one-off mailing. For the future, please check your settings online at www.cacert.org under “My Details” -> “My Alert Settings” or at https://www.cacert.org/account.php?id=36 and choose which newsletters you want to receive. In the future, we intend to rely on your settings so as to send our newsletter only to those who wish to receive the specified information.

Best regards,
Alexander Bahlo
Officer for Public Relations
CAcert.org

Further information on the New Points counting:
https://wiki.cacert.org/FAQ/NewPointsCount