The server site reads this certificate and maps it to user-registration information. While server certificates are common because SSL insists upon them, client certificates have languished because they're optional. It's shameful how rarely we use client certificates, given that they're standard and browsers have supported them for years. As a result, the user ID process has become convoluted, relying on constant cooperation from users and vigilance from site designers. We've traded a single dose of complexity during browser setup for a constant stream of user IDs, passwords and cookies.
Client certificates are a more elegant solution.
In addition to the standardization of the protocols provided by x.509 and SSL, vendors have offered decent tools at the higher layers. At April's Internet Security Conference in San Jose, Network Computing and CyberSafe cobbled together a demo that illustrated the use of client authentication in an e-commerce application. We used NT, IIS and Intershop to create the prototypical e-commerce site. Our demo aimed to show that strong client-side authentication is secure and reliable for practical enterprisewide deployment. Its ASP scripting provides a Request.