Glossary

CA

Certification Authority. An authority that creates and signs public-key (identity) certificates for one or more users. An institution may act as a CA for its own users, or may act solely as an RA and pass user details to a central JISC authority for certificate generation.

CRS

Certificate Revocation Service. A means by which a 'relying party' (such as a DSP) can verify that a certificate has not been declared invalid by the certificate issuer (the CA). The X.509 standard defines the use of Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs), signed lists of revoked certificates issued by each certificate issuer, to provide this service.

DSP

Data Service Provider. Primarily, this refers to each of the national JISC-funded services. In the context of the TIES project, however, at least one commercial DSP (a vendor) will be sought as an Associate Partner.

RA

Registration Authority. An authority which determines those to whom certificates are to be issued. An institution may act as both the RA and CA, or may offload the certificate generation function to a central JISC CA.

X.509

An International Standard which defines the prevailing technology for digital certificates and other security measures. X.509 defines two types of digital certificate: a public key certificate which asserts identity, and an attribute certificate which asserts privilege. Only the first of these is in widespread use; the second is a more recent development (2001).
See the X.509 certificate FAQ at JISC for further information: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/pub02/ar1/cert_faq.html