View Source: X509 - Waikato Linux Users Group

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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 useful documentation on X509 certificates: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/security/cert3.html

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:

* Various code-signing schemes, such as signed Java ARchives, and Microsoft Authenticode (because these things are built upon [SSL]).
* Various secure E-Mail standards, such as [PEM] and [S/MIME] (S/MIME can also use [OpenPGP]).
* E-Commerce protocols, such as SET.
* MicrosoftWindows

!!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.

__Breaking news!__ the ITU is allowing you to download any 3 specifications per year for free.  Which is great since things like [X509] rely on other standards, but by 2033 you may have enough information! :)
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CategoryStandards
11 pages link to X509:
Last edited on Thursday, June 23, 2005 8:40:06 pm by "JuanGarcia"
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