Self-certified keys

You may find some articles related to the subject on

http://www.ens.fr/~petersen/publications.html

In these papers several extensions of self-certified keys, which 
make them more competitive compared with certificate-based keys 
are presented. 

The main features of self-certified keys lie in their easy
availability and accessibility. Other parameters than 
system parameters are not required to be authentic. 
Therefore large databases with certified public keys (TTPs) 
are not needed any more. However, small lists with the 
authentic public keys of the certification authorities 
are still needed. 

The properties of self-certified keys are:

-- Determination of a public key without an authentic 
   public directory (TTP).

-- Non-repudiation of public keys.

-- Efficient verification of a single certificate.

-- Efficiency in verification of hierarchical certificates
   vs. batch signatures

-- Importance of key propagation.

-- High security of self-certified keys.

Theodor Schlickmann