A public-key infrastructure (PKI) is a set of hardware,
software, people, policies and procedure that is needed to create, manage,
distribute, use, store and revoke digital certificates.
- A system for the creation, storage and distribution of
digital certificates which are used to verify that a particular public key
belongs to a certain entity.
- PKI (1) creates digital certificates which map public keys
to entities (2) stores certificates in central repository (3) revoke when
needed.
* A digital certificate is an electronic document which uses
a digital signature to bind a public key with an identity. Some information of
the identity may include name of person or organization, their address etc. The
certificate can be used to verify that a public key belongs to an individual.
A PKI is an arrangement that
- Binds public keys with respective user identities by means
of a certificate authority (CA).
User identity must be unique within each CA domain.
There are three
methods of certification
1) Certificate
authorities (CAs)
2) Web of trust (WOT)
3) Simple public-key
infrastructure (SPKI)
Certificate
authorities (CAs)
CA digitally signs and publishes the public key bound to a
given user. To ensure trust in the user key relies on one’s trust in the
validity of the CA’s key, this is done using the CA’s own private key. The
mechanism that binds keys to users is called the Registration Authority, which
may or may not be separate from the CA.
Web Of Trust (WOT)
This is an alternative approach to the problem of public
authentication of public-key information is the web of trust scheme, which uses
self-signed certificates and third party attestations of those certificates.
Simple public-key
infrastructure (SPKI)
This is considered another alternative which does not deal
with public authentication of public-key information. SPKI does not associate
users with persons, since they key is what is trusted, rather than the person.
SPKI also does not use any notion of trust as the verifier is also the issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_infrastructure
/ http://www.articsoft.com/public_key_infrastructure.htm
Hi Ameer,
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kthxbai
LOL! the comment above is so random -.-
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I have read your posts. Hmm..i think that it is detailed and informative. Also, all ideas are paragraphed very nicely. Except that you need to work on your format(the spaces between each paragraph).
That is all from me! See you in school!
Hetty
HI AMEER
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU for your post on public key infrastructure. i have learnt SO MUCH from this post and from the various links you've mentioned. FOR instance, artic soft have eleborated clearly on public key infrastructure. However, TAKING this and comparing with wikipedia, MY view are that they have different SPOT IN their opinions. i will GOOGLE and find more DOCS concerning this issue. thank you ameer once AGAIN for this blogpost
-Xudong