For this assignment, you are to write a well-researched, well-edited 600 page paper (longer is okay), including references, that addresses the following questions in a thorough and scholarly manner.

• Investigate one or more Certificate Authorities used on the web, and describe what you find out about the technical and organizational features of the CA. How large is their network? How many intermediate authorities do they employ? How many certificates have they signed? Do not limit yourself to these questions, but provide a thorough overview of how the CA is run.

• Do you have any objections to the way this Certificate Authority is run? Is there any evidence of corruption, poor management, insecure technical practices, or any combination of these? If there have been specific security breaches or controversies relating to the CA, then describe and document them to support your point.

• Propose your own model for a CA or other public-key infrastructure that addresses these shortcomings. It can be hierarchical or distributed. Then, defend this model, showing in what way it is more secure/efficient/robust than an existing CA structure.