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FWIW, Trustico isn't a CA. They're a certificate reseller; all certificate validation is handled by a different company. If Trustico hadn't been generating thei
by Ajedi32 9y ago
FWIW, Trustico isn't a CA. They're a certificate reseller; all certificate validation is handled by a different company. If Trustico hadn't been generating their customers private keys for them (or if their customers had refused to let them do things that way) they wouldn't have been able to screw things up this badly.
- warent 9y agoGot it, that kind of makes sense. The concept of certificate reseller doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me but thank you for making the distinction
- tialaramex 9y agoMostly they exist because of price discrimination. Rich Uncle Bob hears he needs an "SSL Certificate" he's heard of "Thawte" brand SSL, he goes to the brand website and clicks "Buy $69.99 per year". His savvy friend Tight Mike needs one too, he shops around, finds a reseller called "Discount SSL" that offers an Thawte certificate for $18.99 What's the difference? Nothing except that Tight Mike was looking for a cheaper price, and if "Discount SSL" didn't sell it to him for $18.99 he might have eventually kept looking enough to find that somewhere else has a GoDaddy cert for $12.99 or whatever. Bob didn't care, he just paid whatever they asked, so wring the maximum possible out of him. In theory there's also some more traditional "sales and service" type role, where they educate customers, help manage local experience e.g. maybe the Reseller is in Egypt and your English isn't so good - and that sort of thing. But a LOT of the business is straight price discrimination, trying to ensure as much of the customer's money goes to you as possible without them switching to a competitor with lower prices.