Security without Obscurity

Chapter 3

PKI Building Blocks

This chapter builds on the general security and cryptography basics presented in the previous chapters. The public key infrastructure building blocks include details of related standards, descriptions of selected protocols, and various architectural components. These PKI building blocks provide a foundational knowledge base for the remainder of the book and more generally for the reader’s continuing education.

Any PKI participant including managers, administrators, auditors, security professionals, subscribers, and even relying parties benefits from a better understanding of PKI technology and cryptography. Technology is usually based on industry standards or specifications and implemented by product manufactures ...