| Abstrakt | The introduction of public key cryptography (PKC) was a critical advance in
the development of the Internet as it enabled secure communication over open networks between
entities without prior contact. This represented a tremendous advance on the symmetric key
approach, but beyond this PKC also enables techniques that have no analogue in traditional
cryptography, most importantly digital signatures such as those used to authenticate software
downloads and updates. Although PKC does not rely on the exchange of secret keys, pairs of
private and public keys are used and proper key management is of vital importance: we must
keep private keys private, and we must guarantee their authenticity. So it is not sufficient
to study only the ingenious underlying mathematical mechanisms, we must understand the
so-called public key infrastructures (PKIs) used to manage key pairs.
In this book the authors explain the most important concepts underlying PKIs and discuss
relevant standards, implementations, and applications. The book is structured into chapters
on the motivation for PKI, certificates, trust models, private keys, revocation,
validity models, certification service providers, certificate policies, certification paths,
and practical aspects of PKI.
This is a suitable textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in computer
science, mathematics, engineering, and related disciplines, complementing introductory
courses on cryptography. The authors assume only basic computer science prerequisites,
and they include exercises in all chapters and solutions in an appendix. They also include
detailed pointers to relevant standards and implementation guidelines, so the book is also
appropriate for self-study and reference by industrial and academic researchers and
practitioners. |
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