Way back in July of 2002 Jon Udell wrote an article over on webservices.xml.com titled Control Your Identity or Microsoft and Intel Will that covered setting up your own mail client certificate. I remember liking the idea of digitally signing email and looking into getting one at the time, but I was using a mail program that didn't support S/MIME at all. Fast forward to now. Apple releases Panther and the mail program supports S/MIME. After a bit of fiddling around I figured out how exactly to get a certificate and got it all set up. It was a bit confusing since I wasn't sure if I was doing things right at all. Today someone pointed me at a page that has directions for setting it up, accomplishing what I'd planned to to all along. So, if you're interested in setting one up, you should check out Using encryption and digital signatures in Mail. It's actually not too difficult to set up with those instructions.

I actually think that Apple should offer secure certs for .Mac customers. It would be a kickass feature.