Certificates turn 30, X.509 turns 20, no-one notices

Peter Gutmann pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz
Mon Nov 24 23:54:11 EST 2008


This doesn't seem to have garnered much attention, but this year marks two
milestones in PKI: Loren Kohnfelder's thesis was published 30 years ago, and
X.509v1 was published 20 years ago.

As a sign of PKI's successful penetration of the marketplace, the premier get-
together for PKI folks, the IDtrust Symposium (formerly the PKI Workshop and
now in its eighth year) authenticates participants with... username and
password, for lack of a working PKI.

(OK, it's a bit of a cheap shot and it's been done before, but I thought it
was especially significant this year :-).

Peter.

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