Distribution of public key certificates

Integrated with systems or applications.

Directory systems.

• Large scale.

  • ex. X.500 through LDAP.

• Organizational.

  • ex. Windows 2000 Active Directory (AD).

Together with signatures.

• Within protocols using certificates for peer authentication.

  • e.g. secure communication protocols (SSL, IPSec, etc.).

• As part of document signatures.

  • PDF/Word/XML, etc. documents, MIME mail messages.

Explicit (voluntarily triggered by users).

Users request a service to get a required certificate.

• e.g. request sent by e-mail.

• e.g. access to a personal HTTP page.

Useful for creating certification chains for frequently used terminal certificates.

• e.g. certificate chains for authenticating with the Cartão de Cidadão.