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If I have signed a key from Public key authority or public key certificate how can I cancel it?

And here some pictures which shows how public key authority and public key certificate works public key authority

public key certificate

Marv
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shrouk
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  • can't you contact the authority to ask if they can revoke it? also, and don't take me wrong, even if these are nice diagrams, they just represent the flow of a secure connection, i don't see how are they relevant to the question. – saljuama Jan 13 '16 at 00:09
  • I know these diagrams are from a data security book and what I need just an answer for the question like for an exam not a practical solution that's why i added the diagrams – shrouk Jan 13 '16 at 11:59
  • Revoke the certificate, and stop using the corresponding private key. Create a new keypair and get a new certificate. We don't need the picture. Anybody who needs the picture doesn't know the answer. – user207421 Jan 13 '16 at 12:58
  • Thanks I appreciate your help – shrouk Jan 13 '16 at 13:42

1 Answers1

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In the environment you described and illustrated in your question, in order to initiate a encrypted comunication, the Initiator has to encrypt the data with the Responder public key, so when the Responder receives a message, will be able to decrypt it with its private key.

So the authorities described in the diagrams, play the roles of public-key distribution, and trust authority, confirming that users are really who they say they are. This means that by uploading a public key or sign ing a public certificate with these authorities, you are just providing other users/machines a mechanism to comunicate with you in a secure maner.

If you want to cancel that public key/certificate from being available, or in other words, prevent your key/certificate to be available to anyone to initiate a secure comunication with you, is the authority who has control over it, becasue it lies in their database, and this is why, you should ask them to revoke the key or the certificate.

saljuama
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