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The following procedures delete MIT personal certificates.

In Firefox on all platforms, and Internet Explorer 7 on Windows, unexpired and expired personal certificates can coexist. In Safari 3.x on Mac OS X, an expired MIT personal certificate may interfere with getting to MIT certifcate-protected web sites, even if you have an unexpired certificate; therefore, IS&T recommends deleting expired certificates.

If you send or receive email which has been signed or encrypted with your personal certificate, you will need to keep that certificate on your system even after it expires, in order to validate and read the email. If you experience difficulty accessing certificate-protected MIT web sites, you should export, then delete, your expired certificates.

Firefox

1. On Athena, Linux, or Macintosh, go to Preferences > Advanced > View Certificates.
   On Windows, go to Tools > Options > Advanced > View Certificates.
2. Click Your Certificates, then select the personal certificates to delete (hold down the Shift key to select multiple items).
3. Click Delete.
4. In the "Delete your Certificates window", click OK.
   Result: You may be prompted to enter the master password (browser password) for the Software Security Device.
5. Click OK to exit.
6. Get a new personal certificate.
   

Internet Explorer

1. Go to Tools > Internet Options > Content > Certificates > Personal.
2. Select the certificate to delete.
3. Click Remove.
4. In the confirmation box, click Yes.
5. Click Close, and then click OK.
6. Get a new personal certificate.
   

Safari

Because of a conflict between unexpired and expired personal certificates in accessing secure MIT web pages, you must delete expired certificates, even if you already have an unexpired certificate.

1. From your Mac OS X account, go to Applications > Utilities > Keychain Access.
2. In the Keychains list, select login.
3. Select the item with your full name. It should have a certificate icon next to it, and the label " certificate" under Kind; this is your MIT personal certificate. In the panel showing the certificate attributes, check to see that the selected item is expired, or that it will expire soon.
4. Go to Edit > Delete in the Keychain Access menus.
5. In the confirmation dialog, click Delete.
6. Quit Keychain Access.
7. Get a new personal certificate.
   
8. After deleting expired certificates and getting a new personal certificate, download and run the tool CertAid to fix problems accessing some MIT secure web sites.

Getting Help

• Athena users: Athena Consulting
• Linux, Macintosh, or Windows users: Service Desk

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