Customer Support » Installing and using your certificate in Netscape Communicator 4.5

Installation of your certificate

When your receive your PersonalSign certificate, choose ‘Security’ in the Toolbar and then click on ‘Messenger’. Choose the ‘certificate for your signed and encrypted messages’
In that ‘Security Advisor’s Messenger Security Settings’ you can easily manage every thing about your certificates.

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Send secure e-mails with Netscape Messenger

To start sending secure e-mails:

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Digitally signing your e-mail with Messenger
The first step to securing your e-mail messages is to sign them with your digital certificate. In that way the recipient of your message can verify that it was really you who sent the message and that it was not altered enroute.
Signing a message does not affect contents of the message in any way or protect the message from being intercepted and read by someone other than the intended recipient. To ensure that only the intended recipient can read a message, you must also encrypt the message.
If the recipient of your signed message uses an S/MIME–enabled e-mail package, he can still read your message. Your digital signature shows up as an attachment.
The signed icon shows that the message was signed. When you receive a signed message, the signed icon appears when you view it in Netscape


Your e-mail program verifies the digital signature automatically for you.
Messenger also automatically stores the sender’s digital certificate, enabling future messages sent to that person to be encrypted.



You can sign your messages each time you want to sign or you can configure your security option in the way that your messages will be automatically signed.

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Signing individual messages

To sign an outgoing message:

1. Click on the ‘message sending options’ tab in the message window
2. Enable the ‘signed’ checkbox

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Automatically signing every outgoing message

To configure your Messenger Security Settings to automatically sign outgoing messages:

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Encrypting / scrambling your e-mail messages with Messenger
The second step to securing your e-mail messages is to encrypt them.
E-mail messages are relatively easy for other people to intercept or read.
You can avoid this by encrypt you message so that only the addressee of the message can read it.
Encrypt with Messenger is as easy as signing.
To encrypt your message you need to have a copy of the digital certificate of the intended recipient. When you receive a signed message, Communicator automatically stores the sender’s digital certificate.
You can also find someone’s certificate in the online directory of the certification authority (GlobalSign,…)
To have more information about maintaining digital certificates in your Contacts List, see "Managing correspondents’ digital certificates"
When you receive an encrypted message, Messenger will automatically decrypt it. When the message is viewed, an icon is displayed indicating that the message was encrypted when it was sent, or both signed and encrypted.




You can encrypt your messages each time you want to encrypt or you can configure your security preferences to automatically encrypt all e-mail messages to recipients whose digital certificates are stored in your Contacts List.

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Encrypting individual messages:
To encrypt an outgoing message:

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Automatically encrypting outgoing messages
To configure your Messenger Security Settings to automatically encrypt outgoing messages to recipients whose digital certificates are stored in your Contacts List:

1. Open the Netscape Communicator Security Advisor by clicking on the 'Security' icon in the toolbar or by selecting 'security info' from the 'Communicator' menu
2. Click on the 'messenger' link to display the Messenger Security Settings
3. Enable the checkbox that reads 'encrypt mail messages, when it is possible'.

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Managing correspondents' digital certificates
To send someone an encrypted message, you need a copy of their digital certificate in your Contacts List. When you receive a signed message, Communicator automatically stores the sender's digital certificate. You can also find someone's digital certificate from an online directory so that you can send them an encrypted message without first receiving a signed message from them.

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Viewing Your List of Contacts' Digital Certificates
When you receive or download someone's digital certificate, Communicator stores it in its certificate list. You can send encrypted e-mails to anyone in this list.

To view the list of people whose digital certificates you have:

1. Open the Netscape Communicator Security Advisor by clicking on the 'Security' icon on the toolbar, or by selecting 'Security Info' from the 'Communicator' menu.
2. Click on the 'People' link in the Certificates category.

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Managing the digital certificates in your contact list

To view one of your contacts'digital certificate:

To verify one of your contacts' digital certificates:

To delete a digital certificate from your contacts list:

1. Open the Netscape Communicator Security Advisor by clicking on the 'Security' icon in the toolbar or by choosing 'Security Info' from the 'Communicator' menu.
2. Click on the 'People' link in the Certificates category.
3. Select the person whose digital certificate you want to remove.
4. Click the 'Delete' button. Once you delete the digital certificate, you will no longer be able to send encrypted e-mails to that person.

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Finding Someone's digital certificate.

If you haven't received a signed message from the person to whom you want to send an encrypted message, you can look up the person in an online directory and download their digital certificate. To find someone's digital certificate:
Two possibilities:
A. The person to whom you want to send an encrypted message has a GlobalSign digital certificate:

B. The person to whom you want to send an encrypted message has another digital certificate: