[Cryptography] On the deployment of client-side certs

[Jerry Leichter]

A system based on a client-side certificate consists of the following on the client side:

1.  A private/public key pair;
2.  Secure storage of the private key;
3.  Secure computation of a signature using the private key;
4.  Delivery of the public key along with appropriate signed material.

Both steps 2 and 3 represent the key implementation requirement:  A secure mechanism to hold and apply a private key.

Given the hardware necessary to do that, wouldn't it be easier, more efficient, and less likely to leak identity information to use it to implement a password-authenticated key agreement protocol like SRP?  Note that the "password", being stored in the secure hardware rather than the user's head, can be an arbitrary bitstring.
                                                        -- Jerry