Certificate Authority
• FAQs
Certificate Authority Service
Digital certificates are an essential part of the current infrastructure for conducting secure transactions over the World Wide Web. On November 17, 1999, CREN deployed a top-level Certificate Authority Service that provides authentication services to CREN's member institutions and other
academic and research institutions. This new service makes online information access more secure for higher education and research institutions by allowing individuals at those institutions to share information in a cryptographically secure environment.
You can read more about the launching of CREN's new Certificate Authority service by downloading this MIT News Press Release (PDF format) or by browsing our photo essay of the event.
You can view a sample CREN digital certificate here.
Visit the CREN repository.
Download the FAQ from CREN and the Digital Library Federation (pdf format).
The CREN root certificate was re-issued as a result of consultation with the community. View the CREN certificate with the eight year validity period here.
Learn more about CREN's Directories, CA, and PKI Seminar.
Want to learn more? A certificate authority service offers many benefits to your institution, including:
- Ready access management tools
- Trusted third party certification
- The facilitation of Inter-institutional programs
| CREN has created a mailing list to send out updated information on our Certificate Authority Service. To join this list, send an email message to cren@cren.net. Please put "CA List" in the subject heading and include your name and the name of your institution in the message. |
Ready to apply? You can get all of the documents and the information you need from our Application page. Once the application process has been started for your institution, you can check its progress from your Application Checklist.
We are currently pilot testing our Certificate Authority Service. As we do so, some of the documents may change slightly. To check for an updated version of a specific document, go directly to our Documents page.
| If you ever have a question about your application or about our Certificate Authority services, send it directly to cren@cren.net. |
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