PKI needs good standards?

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 200 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1363-4127
• DOI: 10.1016/s1363-4127(03)00302-9

✦ Synopsis

PKI appears to many observers to have been a failure. We suggest that the bad image of PKI has been caused largely by poor implementations coinciding with overhyped expectations. We further suggest that a root cause of this situation has been the lack of a coherent and consistent set of good standards supporting the development of PKI. We attempt to demonstrate the types of standards that a technology needs for its support while it matures. We look briefly at the standards that PKI has engendered and conclude that they have hindered as much as they have helped. Finally, we determine what standards are needed to enable PKI to rise, phoenix-like, from its own ashes.