4.3. Active Directory Roles

One of AD's main tasks is to authenticate resource access. The AD first has to establish the identity of the machine and user, and then determine that the request is reliably originating from that source. Some requests are generated by systems (other computers), and many times the requests are generated by users. The desire to allow secure transactions over what are inherently insecure wide area networks such as the Internet makes the problem daunting.

4.3.1. Public Key Infrastructures

Many of the basic mechanisms for identity and authentication were already part of the original Windows 2000 Server release, albeit scattered about in separate applications. In Windows Server 2000 Microsoft already had a Public Key ...

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