Safe Internet Surfing

Ian Billen of ValleyPurchases.com told me he liked my article and wish to add his own article. It's great and is sort of a second part or additional to my own article - so I added it too. I published it below.

This is my article:
Discover How To Buy Online Safe And Secure!

Now the NEW additional:
How To Stay Safe When Ordering A Product Or Service Over The Internet


Another item that you should look for when buying online is "Digital Certificates".

A digital certificate primarily does one of these two things:

1. Allows you access to a web page or network.

or

2. Enables you, the consumer to verify the identity of a website or web business as in fact being the "real" business and not someone, or some entity posing as such by trusting the word of a "third party" company.

When buying on-line your web browser should automatically (by default) ask if you would like to accept the certificate from the web business you are buying from. In accepting this means...."Hey this is the 'real' company. Now, do you want to continue into their website or continue with the purchase?"

Certificates are issued by "trusted" third party organizations that are NOT part of the web merchant you are ordering from.

After the merchant "checks out" OK these companies issue a certificate to the online vendor.

How do they "check out", or how do these trusted third party companies really know the web-merchant is who they say they are and can verify such to you the consumer when you go to buy from them?

Digital Certificates are issued to web merchants after the administrator and/or the web-host administrator that houses the website for the business submits proper web identification to the third party. This information is then verified by the third party company who issues the certificate. These third parties are "trusted" in the sense that the internet community takes the companies word that the web-merchant that consumers are buying from are the real party (the actual website who's domain name you typed into your web browser) and not someone presenting themselves as such, but really isn't.

There are many many of these trusted third party organizations. To name a few of these web companies (or trusted third parties) are Commodo, Rapid SSL, VeriSign, Thawte and Geo Trust. These are some of the major ones. At http://valleyPurchases.com we use Thawte as our certificate provider and we have never had an issue. A quality web merchant should use a well known trusted third party to issue the certificate for them.

There are a good hand full of these companies that most everyone knows and trusts. However, there are loads of less known ones. this is not to indicate these less known companies are any less reliable. However it is my humble opinion that it is safest buying from an online business that uses a well known certificate company for it's certificate service provider. The decision is yours. To continue, these third party organizations issue certificates to web businesses for buyers confidence and security when ordering from the merchant itself.

That is why they are called "trusted" parties, or "trusted third parties".... you see the internet community trusts their word and services in validating web-merchants as being who they say they are and not just someone posing as such. Hence, these web companies are presenting you, the consumer the certificate in saying... "yeah XYZ is really XYZ here in your web browser. Don't worry, it is not some 'mock page' or a Trojan Horse website anything like that."

Digital Certificates are usually issued to web merchants for only a certain period of time. Usually one to five years (although some companies opt to purchase their certificate for the life of the companies existence for a one time larger fee). After this time period the merchant must renew the certificate or purchase a new one.

So how do you know the certificate is still valid?

Simply click on the little lock that presents itself in the address bar, or at the corner of your web browser when in the check-out portion of a web-merchants ordering pages.

Here the issuing third party organization will be listed. Also, there will be an option to "view" the certificates more detailed information. Under this "view" option you can see when the certificate was issued, and when it expires.

Do NOT purchase from online merchants when your bowser states the certificate date has expired or when investigating the certificate manually in the "view" option I discussed earlier it lists the certificate date has passed.

In other words....make sure the certificate is still current.

Should I check myself every time I order to see who issued the certificate or if it is still current?

Normally (under the default, or normal security settings) your web browser will automatically tell you the certificate has expired if the certificate is passed it's expiration date. As soon as you enter the secure portion of the web-site a window should present itself to you explaining such.

If it has expired, do NOT proceed with the purchase and go to a website that uses a certificate that is current.

This was a nice addition to this constantly and ever important subject.

Ian Billen with Valley Purchases
http://valleypurchases.com ....A Secure Shopping Website.

Safe Internet Surfing