Accessing secure pages from an Apple Mac using Internet Explorer
version 5.

We have recently installed a new 128bit Trustwise Global server
certificate:

https://www.footballwise.com/club.php?club_id=1

When user's access this on a Mac running IE 5 they receive a Security
Failure, Data Encryption Error.  We need a server side solution which
will enable users using Apple Mac's to access the above URL. 
Naturally the solution should not affect user's on other
platforms/browsers.  Preferably, we do not want to change the
certificate we already have installed.

Can anyone resolve this?

---

Request for Question Clarification by leep-ga on 17 Oct 2002 03:12 PDT

One solution (for Apache servers) is listed on the following page, but
since it's more of a hack (and one that may not work in your case),
I'm not posting it as an answer:

"Mac IE 5 "Data Decryption Error" FAQ":
http://www.davehendler.com/ie5faq/

The problem (and the above solution) are briefly discussed in this
recent newsgroup thread:
"Subject: Apache MSIE on MAC client issue":
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&th=23fc365222ef197e&rnum=3

Additionally, I noticed that several e-commerce sites specifically
mention this problem in their FAQs.  Both sites listed below include
this same information:

"However, some browsers still use the lower security 64-bit encryption
... There is currently no [Macintosh] Internet Explorer patch to fix
problems with high security sites. The best solution is to run
Netscape 4.7 Communicator (Usually found in the Applications (Mac OS
9) file on your hard disk)..."

above sentences from "Your browser displays a 'data encryption error'
when you try to submit data":
http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/resource/FAQ.shtml
http://www.dadamo.com/napharm/store3/template2/problems.htm

I hope the above is somewhat helpful,


leep-ga

---

Clarification of Question by andys-ga on 17 Oct 2002 10:09 PDT

Hi

Thanks for your response, we tried the first option as detailed at:

http://www.davehendler.com/ie5faq/ 

and it seemed to turn off the SSL for Mac users, they get a dialog box
saying "Unable to establish secure connection to www.footballwise.com
there is a problem with the certificate at that site.  The identity
certificate issuer is unknow"

It seems that the change we made tells a Mac to not use SSL to
connect.

I have yet to look through the other links you mentioned but wondered
whether this is what you would expect to happen.

Thanks

---

Request for Question Clarification by leep-ga on 12 Nov 2002 23:30 PST

Out of curiosity, did you find a workable solution to this problem?

Hello,

I 'think' it could be down to the way the browser interprets the
"Issued by" details of the certificate. I noticed that your
certificate doesn't appear to have a "Issued by" Common Name (CN)
visible in PC Mozilla / PC Netscape 6.  (view certificate) This
'might' be the reason why Mac IE refuses to authenticate with the
"Issuer is unknown" error message. PC IE doesn't display the Issued by
CN information.

... a wild guess!

Mac IE 5+ doesn't usually have this problem from a browsing
perspective
.. I use it all the time.. no errors on 128 bit banking/e-commerce
sites including answers.google.com

Kind regards lot-ga

e.g.

Issued To:
Common Name(CN) www.footballwise.com
Organization (O) Football Limited
Organizational Unit (OU) Terms of Use...

Issued By:
Common Name(CN) <Not Part of Certificate>
Organization (O) Verisign Trust Network
Organizational Unit (OU) Verisign, Inc.

the other browsers perhaps not making a big deal out of the missing
Issuer's Common Name, but Mac I.E. kicks up a fuss perhaps.

regards lot-ga