Trust anchor — in cryptographic systems with hierarchical structure is an authoritative entity for which trust is assumed and not derived.
In X.509 architecture, a root certificate would be the trust anchor from which whole chain of trust is derived. The trust anchor must be in possession of the trusting party beforehand to make any further certificate path validation possible.
In most operating systems, the trust anchor is a collection of X.509 certificates of certification authorities that come preinstalled with the operating system, or is built into an application (such as web browser).
Famous quotes containing the words trust and/or anchor:
“My time has been passed viciously and agreeably; at thirty-one so few years months days hours or minutes remain that “Carpe Diem” is not enough. I have been obliged to crop even the seconds—for who can trust to tomorrow?”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“the anchor weeps
Its red rust downward,”
—Louise Bogan (1897–1970)