---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 08:35:12 +0200 From: Stephan Neuhaus <neuhaus@st.cs.uni-sb.de> To: cryptography@metzdowd.com Subject: German CA TrustCenter insolvent Original article at http://www.heise.de/security/news/meldung/64224 It seems that the German TC TrustCenter GmbH (formerly TC TrustCenter AG) is now insolvent. TrustCenter was accredited to issue "qualified signatures", which is what you need in Germany if you want your digital signature to be as binding as your handwritten one. It is as yet unclear why TrustCenter ran out of money, but the fact that German banks sold their TrustCenter stocks to BeTrusted (now part of Cybertrust) in 2004 shows that the banks had lost their confidence in PKI. An interesting question is of course what happens with TrustCenter's private keys. Are they being auctioned off to the highest bidder? Fun, Stephan