Foundational Certificate Authority

Speaker: James Tilton

Room: CC 203

Time: Sat 3:00 pm – 3:30 pm

Format: Lecture (30 Min + Q&A)

Difficulty: Some experience required

Track: Security / Privacy

Additional Tags: Networks, Self-Hosting

Presenter Location: In-person

Experience: first time speaking / several-th time speaking

At: anywhere, at lfnw

Description:

This talk is divided into two parts:

1. Fundamentals of Certificates An introduction to how certificates work, how they establish the web of trust that underpins encrypted communication on the internet, and why certificate authorities are essential to secure systems.

2. Creating and Deploying a Personal Certificate Authority A practical walkthrough of generating your own certificate authority, signing your own TLS certificates, and configuring systems to trust your CA so you can enable validated, secure communication across your personal or self‑hosted infrastructure.

Target Audience:

People using or managing systems that rely on TLS

Anyone interested in security, networking, or self‑hosting