crl.thawte.com

[Anthony Lacey]

Does anyone know why all my dotnet programs started trying to connect to
crl.thawte.com today? As soon as I launch any non-web application my
firewall alerts me to this connection attempt. Today is the first time I
have noticed it. Is this a "normal" thing.

Thanks,
Tony Lacey

 

[Raymond Lewallen]

Are you doing something to connect to an https website somewhere? crl
stands for Certificate Revocation List.

 

[Anthony Lacey]

Hi,

No, I'm not doing anything with the internet. It's a totally local app.
I ran a bunch of other dotnet apps that I didn't write and they ALL did the
same thing... Until I ran Visual Studio! Right after I ran Visual Studio
None of them tried to get to crl.thawte.com again! Thank you very much for
your response. I do appreciate it.

Thanks,
Tony

 

[Steve McLellan]

Hi,

One thing that could cause this is something trying to authenticate a
certificate used to sign a piece of information (for example an assembly).
The same way everyone checks the little security padlock on HTTPS sites (you
do, right..?). No idea if this makes any sense from a .NET point of view
though.

Let us know if you find anything.

Steve

 

[Anthony Lacey]

I only use Developer Express 3rd party assemblies so I wrote them also.
Here is the response:

"We use a certificate from Thawte to codesign all our assemblies. We
used to just use strong keys, but recently a customer (Microsoft) asked
us to codesign our runtimes so their IT department can deploy an
application built using our products across their company. Apparently
our competition do this, so we were glad to apply for the certificate
and start signing our components. It guarrantees that they have not
been altered since we shipped them.

But it seems like your system keeps asking thawte if the same Developer
Express (we have only one) certificate is valid. I am not sure if this
started happenening because your systems security scheme changed or if
you just recently downloaded a version with codesigned assemblies.

I understand you can import the certificate into your trusted list and
it will stop having to ask the thawte root authority over and over.
Feel free to email our team (e-mail address removed) with any questions
you may have about the process - they will be glad to help and possibly
create a knowledgebase article on the process.

rgds,
Richard Morris
Developer Express"