5 ms·

Around this time the method to get a DNS name was basically the same. Send an email with some reasoning to the right person and the name was yours. I remember b

Around this time the method to get a DNS name was basically the same. Send an email with some reasoning to the right person and the name was yours. I remember being amazed that was the case. I also got a SSL cert issued around 1995-6 and the process then was email followed by faxing (or paper mail) proof (in the form of bank account, DUNS numbers and state-level incorporation records) documentation confirming you were who you say you were. I dont believe money even changed hands then.

schoen 8y ago
> I dont believe money even changed hands then. Do you know which CA this was? Maybe you got in during some kind of test or audit period, before the CA had begun its regular business operations?
- amichal 8y ago
  I dont know for certain. I'm almost certain it was Verisign. They might not have been using that name yet. There was a bunch of phoning around to see how this was even done. Asking Wikipedia isn't helping me much just confirms that all this was new back then. I also didn't handle the money for us so it's possible we where invoiced or someone sent a check that I didn't know about. I dont even remember why we felt we needed it at the time.
  - schoen 8y ago
    I'm sure it must have started off with a period of time where things were pretty informal and touch-and-go!
raarts 8y ago
I vividly recall getting a visit (around '96) from Mark Shuttleworth (of Canonical fame). He had founded Thawte Consulting, I think the first competitor of Verisign, who were the only company that sold SSL certificates at the time. He was traveling Europe to visit ISPs trying to woo them into using his service for SSL certificates. He had to spend some time explaining what certificates actually are, because I only had a vague idea (I founded one of the first ISPs in the Netherlands but nobody used SSL at the time). He was much cheaper than Verisign, by automating the process on his site so it was an easy sell.
- heywire 8y ago
  Wow, I can’t believe I didn’t know Mark Shuttleworth founded Thawte. I always knew him as the Ubuntu guy, but never knew where he earned his millions. > Shuttleworth founded Thawte Consulting in 1995, a currently running company which specialized in digital certificates and Internet security. In December 1999, Thawte was acquired by VeriSign, earning Shuttleworth R3.5 billion (about US$575 (equivalent to $844.70 in 2017) million). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth
Tepix 8y ago
I worked quite a bit with SSL certificates in the 90s. They were expensive back then, there were only a few CAs to choose from. Then Thawte entered the market and was cheaper than the rest. I think they were $200.
- amichal 8y ago
  Maybe DNS was free and SSL cost something? The $200 figure is ringing bells. All I remember was the faxing and trying to explain to the CEO we need to send copies of incorporation documents to a random company no one had heard of.
  - voxadam 8y ago
    I seem to remember domain registration costing $200 from the sole registrar, Network Solutions.
    - jlgaddis 8y ago
      I remember it being $70 per domain for two years (from NetSol), but I don't remember when -- I'll go with "sometime around '95, plus or minus five years or so".
      - mgkimsal 8y ago
        Got my first domain in 1996, and it was indeed $70 from netsol. I had many ideas to pursue and wanted to domain them all, but it was too costly, so I limited to just a couple up back then.
    - mbreese 8y ago
      If you go back far enough, domains were an email away or at most a one time fee. I had one back that long ago, and remembered paying something for it, but that was because I didn’t have my own server. This was for a uucp/email gateway, so I needed someone with a server to batch up the email for me to download. This was in the 93-94 range.
  - 8y ago
dboreham 8y ago
afaik (going back to the late 80's) DNS registration was never free. $25/yr, something like that. I know this because a startup I founded registered the name "talk.com" but subsequently lost it because the person who made the registration didn't want to spend the $25..
- foodstances 8y ago
  Depends on the domain. .us registrations were done by emailing a filled-out template to a hostmaster.
  - jfoutz 8y ago
    I worked at an isp that was the state registrar. I had number.street.city.state.us I should have maintained that.

schoen 8y ago

> I dont believe money even changed hands then. Do you know which CA this was? Maybe you got in during some kind of test or audit period, before the CA had begun its regular business operations?

amichal 8y ago
I dont know for certain. I'm almost certain it was Verisign. They might not have been using that name yet. There was a bunch of phoning around to see how this was even done. Asking Wikipedia isn't helping me much just confirms that all this was new back then. I also didn't handle the money for us so it's possible we where invoiced or someone sent a check that I didn't know about. I dont even remember why we felt we needed it at the time.
- schoen 8y ago
  I'm sure it must have started off with a period of time where things were pretty informal and touch-and-go!

raarts 8y ago

I vividly recall getting a visit (around '96) from Mark Shuttleworth (of Canonical fame). He had founded Thawte Consulting, I think the first competitor of Verisign, who were the only company that sold SSL certificates at the time. He was traveling Europe to visit ISPs trying to woo them into using his service for SSL certificates. He had to spend some time explaining what certificates actually are, because I only had a vague idea (I founded one of the first ISPs in the Netherlands but nobody used SSL at the time). He was much cheaper than Verisign, by automating the process on his site so it was an easy sell.

heywire 8y ago
Wow, I can’t believe I didn’t know Mark Shuttleworth founded Thawte. I always knew him as the Ubuntu guy, but never knew where he earned his millions. > Shuttleworth founded Thawte Consulting in 1995, a currently running company which specialized in digital certificates and Internet security. In December 1999, Thawte was acquired by VeriSign, earning Shuttleworth R3.5 billion (about US$575 (equivalent to $844.70 in 2017) million). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth

Tepix 8y ago

I worked quite a bit with SSL certificates in the 90s. They were expensive back then, there were only a few CAs to choose from. Then Thawte entered the market and was cheaper than the rest. I think they were $200.

amichal 8y ago
Maybe DNS was free and SSL cost something? The $200 figure is ringing bells. All I remember was the faxing and trying to explain to the CEO we need to send copies of incorporation documents to a random company no one had heard of.
- voxadam 8y ago
  I seem to remember domain registration costing $200 from the sole registrar, Network Solutions.
  - jlgaddis 8y ago
    I remember it being $70 per domain for two years (from NetSol), but I don't remember when -- I'll go with "sometime around '95, plus or minus five years or so".
    - mgkimsal 8y ago
      Got my first domain in 1996, and it was indeed $70 from netsol. I had many ideas to pursue and wanted to domain them all, but it was too costly, so I limited to just a couple up back then.
  - mbreese 8y ago
    If you go back far enough, domains were an email away or at most a one time fee. I had one back that long ago, and remembered paying something for it, but that was because I didn’t have my own server. This was for a uucp/email gateway, so I needed someone with a server to batch up the email for me to download. This was in the 93-94 range.
- 8y ago

dboreham 8y ago

afaik (going back to the late 80's) DNS registration was never free. $25/yr, something like that. I know this because a startup I founded registered the name "talk.com" but subsequently lost it because the person who made the registration didn't want to spend the $25..

foodstances 8y ago
Depends on the domain. .us registrations were done by emailing a filled-out template to a hostmaster.
- jfoutz 8y ago
  I worked at an isp that was the state registrar. I had number.street.city.state.us I should have maintained that.