The Web refers to interconnected Internet sites and documents. Digital identity is verified by a trusted third party or the informal Web of Trust, which requires multiple signatories. WOT is also a Firefox add-on that helps users avoid online scams and offers a trust seal for trustworthy websites.
The Web is a nickname for the World Wide Web, which refers to both the interconnected group of Internet sites linked via hypertext, as well as all documents on all Internet servers that use the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Digital identity is usually ascertained by an online credential. Companies use digital certificates issued by a CA (Certified Authority), a trusted third party, as part of the public key encryption system, which verifies a user’s identity and allows secure communication on the Internet. The Web of Trust (WOT) is another mechanism for verifying digital identity on the Internet. It is an informal mechanism that is based on trust rather than authority.
In the Web of Trust conceived as a mechanism for PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) by its creator Phil Zimmermann, there is no central authority that guarantees identity. Instead, a user with a new public key finds someone with a public-private key pair and asks that person to be their signatory. The signer’s purpose is to verify the identity of the person with the new public key in an unquestionable way, such as a face-to-face meeting. The other step before signing the key is to ensure that the fingerprint of the key in the key is correct, and once the signing is complete, the signed key can be sent to the key servers. People who trust the signer and believe that he has correctly identified the owner of the public key and verified the key’s fingerprint can then choose to extend their trust to keys that person signed.
To compensate for the fact that the signatories in the system are amateurs, the Web of Trust requires multiple signatories. The concept is that with more independent signatories, there is a better chance of avoiding the misjudgment or flawed process of each individual signer. Rather than the World Wide Web or the growth of trust growing similar to the web, the “web” reference is to the multiplicity of signatories who vouch for each certificate, creating a web of certainty.
Web of Trust is also a Firefox® browser add-on. It is intended to help users avoid online scams, including phishing scams, spyware, viruses, adware, fraud detection, adult content, and spam. The company that makes it, WOT®, also offers the WOT® Trust Seal, which is meant to be a sign of a trustworthy website.
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