Public key infrastructure

By Anon on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 12:33pm.

Can you explain me the public key infrastructure in detail or reference any book with detailed explanation over PKI.
Answer by Ron Nutter

Expert's answer
I found this explanation on Wikipedia that should help get you started:
In cryptography, a public key infrastructure (PKI) is an arrangement that binds public keys with respective user identities by means of a certificate authority (CA). The user identity must be unique for each CA. The binding is established through the registration and issuance process, which, depending on the level of assurance the binding has, may be carried out by software at a CA, or under human supervision. The PKI role that assures this binding is called the Registration Authority (RA) . For each user, the user identity, the public key, their binding, validity conditions and other attributes are made unforgeable in public key certificates issued by the CA.
I checked Sourceforge and found an open source book on PKI that would also be a good reference to review. I went to Amazon's website and found several books on PKI that should also be good sources of information on this subject as well.