Computer Security: Art and Science

Chapter 10. Key Management

	VALENTINE: Why then, I would resort to her by night.DUKE: Ay, but the doors be lock'd and keys kept safe,That no man hath recourse to her by night. VALENTINE: What lets but one may enter at her window?
	--The Two Gentlemen of Verona, III, i, 110–113.

Key management refers to the distribution of cryptographic keys; the mechanisms used to bind an identity to a key; and the generation, maintenance, and revoking of such keys. We assume that identities correctly define principals—that is, a key bound to the identity “Bob” is really Bob's key. Alice did not impersonate Bob's identity to obtain it. Chapter 14, “Representing Identity,” discusses the problem of identifiers naming principals; Chapter 12, “Authentication,” discusses ...