digital certificates?

Question

what is a digital certificate....kindly explain with practical example if possible....i have seen firms buying digital certificates...wht for they really buy them and how do they use them....in wht form does it come??? ....i googled for the same and got some good definitions but practically i could not understand....pls ppl explain this....also do we as an individual use them...????

Answer 1

Digital certificates are usually used for "secure" internet connections. They are installed at the server level for https (secure) connections and they verify that the service is correct encrypted and connected to the server you expect to connect into. (You will see the little "lock'" at the bottom of your browser when you connect to a secure sever .. if you click that lock you can "view the certificate information")
You see them at nearly all online stores, banks, etc. Try https://paypal.com to see one.

You as an individual can use a certificate although I have never seen the need for one personally! It usually is for enterprise security such as mentioned above.

The process is a little complex. First you generate a CSR (certificate signing request) from your computer. That is submitted to a certificate company such as Comodo etc.

They use that request and generate a secure certificate and return an encrypted file to you. That file is then installed on your computer.

Once the two are in place they can be checked and compared by the computer to assure that communication is only to that specific computer from anyone using a secure connection. The data transferred is encrypted and assured to be on that one computer and that one computer only. Thus assuring the outside user they are communicating with the machine they think they are communicating!

(over simplified but that is what is happening)

Answer 2

A digital certificate is like a license that most hosting sites are required to keep valid. My present host seems to think they are the exception, and doesn't have one. Each time I go to the control panel of the site, when I go to the log in part, I am warned that the Digital Certificate for this site is invalid, and tells me that I should not visit that part of the site.
So basically a certificate is used by the browser to identify possibly bad sites, or ones that may not be in a form that is safe to be used by the browsers. These certificates will become invalid if too much BS like scripts are being run in the background, activeX seem to be a key for revocation of a certificate, especially if it is not a known activex script, but rather one rewritten for that site for whatever purpose. These scripts can be like spyware etc., so it is not good to go to a site that has lost their certification for whatever reason.
As an individual, you do not need a Digital Certificate, though if you really felt you needed one, they are available for purchase, though I am not sure for how much or why you would want one.
I run my own server and do not have certificates, but it never says that one should be there, so the why for is beyond my comprehension for the need. Thinking this way, a rogue site run from a private server can be bad, just because they are not checked.
Does that make sense?
Hope this helps