[ic] Recommendation for CA to issue Certs.

[Barry Treahy, Jr.]

Hi folks,

I have used Thawte for the past five years, primarily because they were
one of the few CA's that issued wildcards, and also because they were
the cheapest.  Since that time, Verisign swallowed them up and Thawte
lost much of their identity we as well as their desire to price
wildcards so that small business can easily afford them without a
zillion hassles.  During this same time, it appears that many of the
other CA's have either gone away, merged, or stopped issuing wildcards
too.  We are not an ISP but enjoyed the flexibility of the wildcards
because of the ability to easily replace faulty equipment or testing
equipment without issuing a unique cert to each system.

You admins that host your own systems, how do you tackle this?

Any recommendations on an inexpensive CA that does still handle wildcards?

I'm sick of Thawte, so if I must go for individual certs, any
recommendations on a CA in general as long as it isn't Versign or Thawte?

Lastly, what are the major drawbacks of just creating self-signed certs?

Regards,

Barry