| A trust anchor is an authoritative entity represented via a public key and associated data.
When there is a chain of trust, usually the top entity to be trusted becomes the trust anchor, for example, a Certification Authority (CA). A certification path starts with the Subject certificate and proceeds through a number of intermediate certificates up to a trusted root certificate, typically issued by a trusted CA.
Path validation is necessary for a relying party to make an informed trust decision when presented with any certificate that is not already explicitly trusted.
Status information for certification paths includes, certificate revocation lists or online certificate status protocol responses.
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