Timeline for What is the real use of certificates on the web?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 31, 2015 at 8:21 | vote | accept | learner | ||
| Mar 30, 2015 at 19:04 | comment | added | Steffen Ullrich | A passport lets you verify, that the presenter of the passport is the one (s)he is claiming to be. It does not say anything about trust and the bank only gives the money out because it verified that the details on the passport match the details of the account and not because the person looks trustworthy. Same is true for certificates: they get used to verify that the site you connect to is the site you see in the URL. This validation is needed to protect the connection against man-in-the-middle attacks. But the certificate says nothing on how much you can trust the site. | |
| Mar 30, 2015 at 18:22 | comment | added | learner | but can you give me a specific example of how using a certificate helps against a possible attack? From your answer, anyone (even the owner of a spoof website) can get a certificate claiming him to be the owner of the spoof website. User visits the spoof website and gets exploited. What's the use of certificates here? A passport is used to make sure, when someone goes to withdraw money from a bank account, that he is the owner of the bank account. How is it analogous to certificates? | |
| Mar 29, 2015 at 9:19 | history | edited | Steffen Ullrich | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 29, 2015 at 8:50 | history | edited | Steffen Ullrich | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 403 characters in body
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| Mar 29, 2015 at 8:43 | history | answered | Steffen Ullrich | CC BY-SA 3.0 |