boooblog

I Thawte This Was Supposed to be Easy

By Josh

Wrong.

The whole process started out nicely. I watched the instructional video and set out to http://www.thawte.com with the cockiness of a young man who has filled out somewhere around 62,463 forms for various reasons online. The first few pages flew by (though the amount of personal questions I had to answer were on par with a mortgage application or a police interrogation). I finished up, submitted my request, and waited for the confirmation email. Well… not so much as waited as I kept refreshing the “pending” page until it suddenly became the “approved” page. The clock on the bottom right of my screen let me know that I had 40 minutes until Lost began.

Then my world started to collapse.

The link provided by Thawte to download and install my certificate would open a Firefox window, but it remained blank. I tried several times, but could never get it to open anything other than a blank window. “Perhaps it installed itself,” I thought, so I fired up Thunderbird to try and send myself a couple emails, but with no luck.

Having a strange history with Firefox and its inability to perform certain simple tasks, such as allow me to pay a Verizon Wireless bill, I reluctantly switched to Internet Explorer. Unfortunately this step required applying for a second certificate on my super-secure account, which led to another four minutes of frantically reloading and waiting for the appearance of the magic link. And when it did appear, I clicked it and lo and behold a real popup appeared asking for a username and password. Eureka! I would make it out of this with at least 15 minutes to spare before Lost.

Again, no.

Upon installation of the certificate I retrieved my old, unwanted version of Microsoft Outlook and sent myself an email. No signature. I tinkered around with some settings, found something in the options about “digital certificates,” pressed some buttons and sent myself another email. I unsuccessfully inspected the email closely for signs of a digital signature. I closed Outlook and opened Thunderbird again in hopes that the certificate had magically appeared, but alas one had not.

Finally I pulled out the big guns. I vaguely remembered seeing Microsoft Outlook Express wedged in the forgotten depths of my Start Menu between Microsoft Works and “Remote Assistance” and I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a try. Thirty-nine test emails and five minutes of crying later, I noticed the clock now read 7:55. Five minutes until Lost. I opened a blank email and moved my cursor over “Tools” on the menu bar, hoping to be given the choice to edit the options. Suddenly a choir of angels sang out in my computer room as the day’s last remaining rays of light shone through the window on my monitor and over the words “Digitally Sign.”

I ceremoniously pressed the “Send” button on my digitally signed email to myself and was granted the courtesy of an immediate delivery. Seeing the certificate in action, I quickly and confidently sent you a signed email and basked in my sense of accomplishment for the next two minutes before retreating to the living room to see the long-awaited (and nearly missed!) finale.