X509 is a standard for defining a DigitalCertificate. It is the signing system used for [SSL]. The [X509] PublicKey security model is almost completely incompatible with the [OpenPGP] PublicKey security model, but they serve very different purposes. [X509] is heirarchical and commerce-oriented, whereas [PGP]/[GPG] is massively distributed, very fault tolerant and works using a WebOfTrust. 

  

  

 Some information about how to implement [X509]: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/x509guide.txt This is also just an interesting read to find out why X509 is such a bizarre standard 

  

 Things that use X509 certificates: 

 !!Why you won't find much [X509] information on the [InterNet] 

  

 The [X509] standard was developed by the [ITU-T] which changes money for version of the standard, rather than making them freely avaliable over the InterNet. This is not a problem if you work for a big telecommunications company which has the resources to get you a copy of the standard, but can be a significant barrier to entry for smaller players and OpenSource developers. This may be a reason for the lack of [X509] support in the open source world, expecially compared to things like [OpenPGP] and other freely avaliable standards. 

  

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 CategoryStandards