This isn't going to hurt very much...

To follow up my identity post I managed to procure some digital identity certificates over the weekend. It wasn't really that painful, but I will tell you it wasn't that straight forward either. I pride myself with being somewhat of a geek and actually know the difference between symmetric and asymmetric encryption systems and have a clue how things like SSL and digital certificates work. But I think I now know why the average price of an SSL certificate is well over $100 and not $10 or less. Its because the average customer purchasing one will need some serious handholding, and we're not talking about the kind of handholding that's in "Cliffhanger" either. It also assumes the average purchaser is a reasonably tech savvy IT person and not just a John or Jane Doe who wouldn't know their security certifcate from their 100-yard breaststroke certificate.

So after my experience this weekend, and having spent most of today resolving issues with actually installing said certificates, not to mention the issue of expense, I find myself wondering just what chance there ever is of the average person being able to adopt and use digital certificates for anything as mundane as sending email. Right now I'd put it at close to nil.