
Termination of StartCom business - amatix
https://www.startcomca.com/index/News/newDetail?date=20171116
======
veidr
TL;DR for those who forgot the back story: StartCom was a low-cost certificate
authority that sold to interests whose web of ownership links back to a
telecom owned by the authoritarian government of China.

Given the brazen nature of that government's internet surveillance practices,
that alone was cause for suspicion, and then Apple, Google, and Microsoft all
stopped trusting Startcom-issued certificates after an investigation concluded
that WoSign intentionally mis-issued certificates in order to circumvent
browser restrictions[1].

So, good riddance.

[1]: [https://security.googleblog.com/2016/10/distrusting-
wosign-a...](https://security.googleblog.com/2016/10/distrusting-wosign-and-
startcom.html)

~~~
spayu61
Really biased wrap up.

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tinus_hn
I hear a very small violin playing a sad song, just for StartCom/WoSign. Who’d
have thought that lying and cheating would cause people to lose trust in a
company whose only offering is trust?

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amatix
Received an email too:

 _Dear customer,

As you are surely aware, the browser makers distrusted StartCom around a year
ago and therefore all the end entity certificates newly issued by StartCom are
not trusted by default in browsers.

The browsers imposed some conditions in order for the certificates to be re-
accepted. While StartCom believes that these conditions have been met, it
appears there are still certain difficulties forthcoming. Considering this
situation, the owners of StartCom have decided to terminate the company as a
Certification Authority as mentioned in Startcom´s website.

StartCom will stop issuing new certificates starting from January 1st, 2018
and will provide only CRL and OCSP services for two more years.

StartCom would like to thank you for your support during this difficult time.

StartCom is contacting some other CAs to provide you with the certificates
needed. In case you don´t want us to provide you an alternative, please,
contact us at certmaster@startcomca.com

Please let us know if you need any further assistance with the transition
process. We deeply apologize for any inconveniences that this may cause._

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realworldstuff
Good

