Customer setup

Bob and Mary Jones shopped for a Webcam to view their home when they are away. While neither is a computer professional, they understand why installing such a device in their home may be risky. They sometimes bank online from their home computer, and they can identify secure Web sites.

Bob and Mary buy the Acme Webcam, in part because it supports secure remote access.

  1. Mary sets up the Acme Webcam in their home, as she would with any wirelessly networked product.
  2. She enters "BobAndMary" as the name for identifying her Webcam on the Internet.
  3. She enters her payment information for the remote access services.
When Mary is done, she gets up from the computer to make a cup of coffee, while AutoSSL processes her request: 
  1. The AutoSSL Agent inside the Webcam generates an encryption key, and creates an SSL certificate with it. This certificate is sent to the AutoSSL Server for processing.
  2. The AutoSSL Server validates the information and verifies that Bob and Mary Jones are customers. It also checks that "BobAndMary" is not a name being used by another customer.
  3. The server forwards the SSL certificate to the Certificate Authority for signing.
  4. The Certificate Authority recognizes that this request is from a known AutoSSL Server. Therefore, it signs the SSL certificate immediately and returns it to the AutoSSL Server.
  5. The AutoSSL Server returns the signed SSL certificate to the AutoSSL Agent, which deploys it so that it is available to the Webcam's internal Web server.

Bob and Mary's Webcam now has a valid SSL certificate that secures it with enterprise-grade security. The entire process completed in only a Mary configures her webcamminute or two after Mary submitted her payment information.

Mary browses to BobAndMary.AcmeWebcam.com and sees a login page that the Webcam's internal Web server created. More important, she sees that the padlock on her browser is closed, so she feels safe typing in her user name and password, knowing that the information is encrypted. She types in her password and sees live images of herself in her browser window.

Mary can't quite believe that her little Webcam is as secure as her bank's Web site. She worries that it may just seem this way because she's accessing it from her home. She calls Bob at his office and asks him to perform the same steps she just did. He has the identical experience in accessing their Webcam remotely because it really is as secure as their bank's Web site.