When I was looking at the default root certificate repositories that the major browsers and operating systems use. They are mostly your regular list of CAs and governments, but there's one name that popped out as unique: AOL.
America Online has two legacy certificates[1] in the Microsoft[2], Apple[3], NSS[4], and Android[5] default list of root CAs. I'm assuming this is from back when AIM was all the rage, but remarkably AOL has been keeping up the audits[6] for them. Does anyone have any more info on the history of these certs?
I think might be a great opportunity to address the two problems above. Could AOL start offering free SSL Certificates?
Pros:
1. Their root certificates are already in everyone's list (backwards compatibility).
2. Their core business model is not issuing certificates (not seen as a racket).
3. They would get a huge press coverage for being a "savior of HTTPS" or some such spin (positive spotlight for AOL).
4. There would now be competition in the free SSL cert market (maybe other CAs would start offering free options, too).
Cons:
1. This would be a cost for AOL. Perhaps other tech companies could partner with them to subsidize the cost of issuing the certificate? Perhaps there could be kickstarter to pay for the costs? Perhaps AOL could spin off a non-profit foundation or donate the certificates to Mozilla?
2. Unforseen technical problems associated with starting to chain to a certificate that hasn't been in active use for a long time. I have no idea what these could be. Thoughts?
3. SSL certs would likely be issued with no warranty (since they are free). Not a deal breaker in my opinion, because the scope for these could be for non-commercial use.
Anyway, just tossing out this idea for feedback. There's no sense in pursuing this further if there's technical reasons making this impossible.
Again, does anyone know anyone who works at AOL? I would love to talk to someone there about this.
[1] - https://pki-info.aol.com/AOL/
[2] - https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/...
[3] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5012
[4] - https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/secu...
[5] - https://android.googlesource.com/platform/libcore/+/master/l...
[6] - https://pki-info.aol.com/AOL/2013_AOLRoot_Audit_Attestation....