Are there any certificate authorities for X.509 like www.cacert.org that provide certificates for free? Or at least aren’t $500 USD per year?
I just want to sign a word document without having to go through Docusign or other “digital signing” services making you upload documents to the cloud for signature. Why can’t I just add a signature to a yubikey and use it for signing my name like a “normal” person!
I am thinking about this. as well but with more meatspace component.
I am thinking of using a something of a self signed certificate and “publish” the public key with a lawyer with a notary public service. Or something to this effect. We should check the legality of this of course, but for personal verification uses, it should be fine.
It seems like any postal or notary service should be able to do this, but instead it’s locked behind bigger CAs. Confirm that a customer is who they are then either give them a $50 security key one time and issue them a x.509 certificate for 3 years, or e-mail them a password protected x.509 certificate good for a single year.
Digital signing feels like theft 
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I mean for sure they can do better with regards to security and reliability but the pricing seems way more than it should be even before the pandemic/current economy.