The Mailowl Scrolls

Let me be frank (”Hi, my name is Frank!”), I don’t know anything about digital certificates other than a little theory and this is a stumbling block for learning how to implement CardSpace.

In the CardSpace model the Identity Provider signs and encrypts the user’s claims with the Relying Party’s public key to create a security token which the Relying Party will decrypt with its private key and check that the token was really signed by the Identity Provider.

I realise that maybe I’m jumping ahead of myself and you don’t know what an Identity Provider, Relying Party or user claims are; but I’ll explain that as I get closer to my talk. It’s safe enough for now to understand that if you’re building a website that will use Infocards to authenticate users; you’re going to have to have a certificate to communicate with the Identity Provider.

More on this is shortly…