Are personal digital certificates really usable and scalable
Mark W. Norman, Alun Edwards, Christian Fernau · 2005
This poster outlines the findings of the Digital Certificate Operation in a Complex Environment (DCOCE) project that has recently concluded at Oxford University. PKI is used as a basis for security of the UK e-Science Grid. It was therefore important to ascertain whether the use of digital certificates in higher and further education is scalable to more than a select number of technical users. The project explored the advantages and disadvantages of end user/client digital certificates as means of on-line authentication in a higher or further education information environment. We conclude that the use of client certificates is feasible and scalable. With usability feedback from over eighty users, with a broad spectrum of technical abilities, the DCOCE project looked further into feasibility issues than most other studies where a common desktop environment does not exist. The DCOCE project developed and tested an alternative model of PKI whereby user data was held largely within the institution at a central Registration Authority (central RA). Certificate requests are held by the central RA and passed on to an external Certification Authority (CA). Thus, user data are kept close to the users and the CA specialises in the high availability service of generating/signing certificates and managing revocation lists. This model should prove far more