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A certificate is a key pair with both a public and private part. The private key is needed to sign data, while the public key can only validate that signature.
by gregmac 3y ago
A certificate is a key pair with both a public and private part. The private key is needed to sign data, while the public key can only validate that signature.
You can think of the private key as equivalent to a password, in the context the parent is talking about.
- diarrhea 3y agoThanks for the clarification. It’s a misuse of that term then. A certificate is not a key pair. A certificate is very clearly and narrowly defined: a statement of the form “this public key belongs to this name” (in this case a DNS name, but can be any name), signed by a (mutually) trusted authority. Once you trust that authority, you trust the connection of name to key.