ABSTRACT
Public key security holds a great deal of promise for Internet-based applications and services. Public key security provides critical security services — including authentication, integrity, and confidentiality — in highly distributed systems, making it ideal for Internet applications. Therefore, it seems inevitable that some form of public key security will become the preferred security system for important Internet applications. Indeed, public key security has become the foundation for important Internet security standards, including the Transport Layer Security standard (formerly known as SSL) for authenticating Web servers and the Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) standard for secure messaging.
