Architectures & Technologies …

• X.509 Certificates

  • Problems
    • Authenticating a Principal for a Certificate
    • Mobile Users
      Moving Certificates between Computers
    • Public Terminals
      Cleaning Digital Wallet
    • Managing Certificate Revocation and History
    • Trust Hierarchies

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Although certificates have become the bread and butter of web commerce, there are a number of problems that must be addressed before we can commit to using them for large populations. The first is how do you as a Certificate Authority securely authenticate a person or service provider before issuing them a certificate. Later you may need to revoke privileges provided by a certificate. Since they are stored on the client, you must make servers aware that they are no longer valid. This is handled by Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) which must be maintained and distributed to all servers. Also the fact that the certificates are stored on the client, they are not easily moved to other workstations used by mobile users. They must also be removed from public workstations used by many users. In our model, your credentials should follow you as you move around your work environment.