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:
“I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“The Hacker Ethic: Access to computers—and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total.
Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!
All information should be free.
Mistrust authority—promote decentralization.
Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
You can create art and beauty on a computer.
Computers can change your life for the better.”
—Steven Levy, U.S. writer. Hackers, ch. 2, “The Hacker Ethic,” pp. 27-33, Anchor Press, Doubleday (1984)