Certificates

[iNotesman]

I want to ask a general security question,maybe have nothing to do with Win2000.
Nowdays a solution to authenticate a person's identity is using Certificate,which contains personal info,public key,etc. everyone can get his certificate from CA(Certificate Authority) via Internet.But how about if the certificate not delivering to the valid person,thinking that a malicious person get it?

[pmbabu]

Hi
There is two cases consider in the issuing of certificates by CA.

First one is if certificate request is generated by the person who requires the certificate.
In this case certificate is not useful for any third party (Since they don't know the corresponding private key).

Second one is if Publickey and privatekey also generated by CA.
Generally for this type of communications CA uses the SSL.So there is no third party intervension in this type of cases.

The danger with third party is once you compranise your privatekey.So kept certificates privatekey in a secure place.

PMBabu.