Chapter 8: Application Design and

Development

Database System Concepts

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use

Database System Concepts ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Chapter 8: Application Design and
Development

 User Interfaces and Tools

 Web Interfaces to Databases
 Web Fundamentals
 Servlets and JSP
 Building Large Web Applications
 Triggers
 Authorization in SQL
 Application Security

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 9, 2005. 8.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 User Interfaces and Tools
 Most database users do not use a query language like
SQL.
 Forms
 Graphical user interfaces
 Report generators
 Data analysis tools (see Chapter 18)
 Many interfaces are Web-based
 Back-end (Web server) uses such technologies as
 Java servlets
 Java Server Pages (JSP)
 Active Server Pages (ASP)

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 9, 2005. 8.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The World Wide Web

 The Web is a distributed information system based on

hypertext.
 Most Web documents are hypertext documents formatted
via the HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
 HTML documents contain
 text along with font specifications, and other
formatting instructions
 hypertext links to other documents, which can be
associated with regions of the text.
 forms, enabling users to enter data which can then be
sent back to the Web server

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 A formatted report

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 Web Interfaces to Databases
Why interface databases to the Web?
1. Web browsers have become the de-facto standard user
interface to databases
 Enable large numbers of users to access databases
from anywhere
 Avoid the need for downloading/installing specialized
code, while providing a good graphical user interface
 Examples: banks, airline and rental car reservations,
university course registration and grading, an so on.

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 Web Interfaces to Database (Cont.)

2. Dynamic generation of documents

 Limitations of static HTML documents
 Cannot customize fixed Web documents for
individual users.
 Problematic to update Web documents, especially
if multiple Web documents replicate data.
 Solution: Generate Web documents dynamically from
data stored in a database.
 Can tailor the display based on user information
stored in the database.
– E.g. tailored ads, tailored weather and local
news, …
 Displayed information is up-to-date, unlike the
static Web pages
– E.g. stock market information, ..

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 Uniform Resources Locators
 In the Web, functionality of pointers is provided by Uniform
Resource Locators (URLs).
 URL example:
http://www.bell-labs.com/topics/book/db-book
 The first part indicates how the document is to be
accessed
 “http” indicates that the document is to be accessed
using the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol.
 The second part gives the unique name of a machine on
the Internet.
 The rest of the URL identifies the document within the
machine.
 The local identification can be:
 The path name of a file on the machine, or
 An identifier (path name) of a program, plus arguments
to be passed to the program
– E.g. http://www.google.com/search?q=silberschatz

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 9, 2005. 8.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 HTML and HTTP
 HTML provides formatting, hypertext link, and image
display features.
 HTML also provides input features
 Select from a set of options
– Pop-up menus, radio buttons, check lists
 Enter values
– Text boxes
 Filled in input sent back to the server, to be acted
upon by an executable at the server
 HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) used for
communication with the Web server

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 Sample HTML Source Text
<html> <body>
<table border cols = 3>
<tr> <td> A-101 </td> <td> Downtown </td> <td> 500 </td>
</tr>
…
</table>
<center> The <i>account</i> relation </center>

<form action=“BankQuery” method=get>

Select account/loan and enter number <br>
<select name=“type”>
<option value=“account” selected> Account
<option> value=“Loan”> Loan
</select>
<input type=text size=5 name=“number”>
<input type=submit value=“submit”>
</form>
</body> </html>

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 Display of Sample HTML Source

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 Client Side Scripting and Applets
 Browsers can fetch certain scripts (client-side scripts) or
programs along with documents, and execute them in
“safe mode” at the client site
 Javascript
 Macromedia Flash and Shockwave for
animation/games
 VRML
 Applets
 Client-side scripts/programs allow documents to be active
 E.g., animation by executing programs at the local site
 E.g. ensure that values entered by users satisfy some
correctness checks
 Permit flexible interaction with the user.
 Executing programs at the client site speeds up
interaction by avoiding many round trips to server

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 Client Side Scripting and Security
 Security mechanisms needed to ensure that malicious
scripts do not cause damage to the client machine
 Easy for limited capability scripting languages,
harder for general purpose programming languages
like Java
 E.g. Java’s security system ensures that the Java applet
code does not make any system calls directly
 Disallows dangerous actions such as file writes
 Notifies the user about potentially dangerous
actions, and allows the option to abort the program
or to continue execution.

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 Web Servers
 A Web server can easily serve as a front end to a
variety of information services.
 The document name in a URL may identify an
executable program, that, when run, generates a HTML
document.
 When a HTTP server receives a request for such a
document, it executes the program, and sends back
the HTML document that is generated.
 The Web client can pass extra arguments with the
name of the document.
 To install a new service on the Web, one simply needs
to create and install an executable that provides that
service.
 The Web browser provides a graphical user
interface to the information service.
 Common Gateway Interface (CGI): a standard interface
between web and application server

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 Three-Tier Web Architecture

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 Two-Tier Web Architecture
 Multiple levels of indirection have overheads
 Alternative: two-tier architecture

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 9, 2005. 8.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 HTTP and Sessions
 The HTTP protocol is connectionless
 That is, once the server replies to a request, the
server closes the connection with the client, and
forgets all about the request
 In contrast, Unix logins, and JDBC/ODBC connections
stay connected until the client disconnects
 retaining user authentication and other
information
 Motivation: reduces load on server
 operating systems have tight limits on number of
open connections on a machine
 Information services need session information
 E.g. user authentication should be done only once per
session
 Solution: use a cookie

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 Sessions and Cookies
 A cookie is a small piece of text containing identifying
information
 Sent by server to browser on first interaction
 Sent by browser to the server that created the
cookie on further interactions
 part of the HTTP protocol
 Server saves information about cookies it issued, and
can use it when serving a request
 E.g., authentication information, and user
preferences
 Cookies can be stored permanently or for a limited time

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 Servlets
 Java Servlet specification defines an API for
communication between the Web server and application
program
 E.g. methods to get parameter values and to send HTML
text back to client
 Application program (also called a servlet) is loaded into
the Web server
 Two-tier model
 Each request spawns a new thread in the Web server
 thread is closed once the request is serviced
 Servlet API provides a getSession() method
 Sets a cookie on first interaction with browser, and uses
it to identify session on further interactions
 Provides methods to store and look-up per-session
information
 E.g. user name, preferences, ..

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 Example Servlet Code
Public class BankQuery(Servlet extends HttpServlet {
public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse result)
throws ServletException, IOException {
String type = request.getParameter(“type”);
String number = request.getParameter(“number”);
…code to find the loan amount/account balance …
…using JDBC to communicate with the database..
…we assume the value is stored in the variable balance
result.setContentType(“text/html”);
PrintWriter out = result.getWriter( );
out.println(“<HEAD><TITLE>Query
Result</TITLE></HEAD>”);
out.println(“<BODY>”);
out.println(“Balance on “ + type + number + “=“ +
balance);
out.println(“</BODY>”);
out.close ( );
}
}

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 Server-Side Scripting
 Server-side scripting simplifies the task of connecting a
database to the Web
 Define a HTML document with embedded executable
code/SQL queries.
 Input values from HTML forms can be used directly in
the embedded code/SQL queries.
 When the document is requested, the Web server
executes the embedded code/SQL queries to
generate the actual HTML document.
 Numerous server-side scripting languages
 JSP, Server-side Javascript, ColdFusion Markup
Language (cfml), PHP, Jscript
 General purpose scripting languages: VBScript, Perl,
Python

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 Improving Web Server Performance
 Performance is an issue for popular Web sites
 May be accessed by millions of users every day,
thousands of requests per second at peak time
 Caching techniques used to reduce cost of serving
pages by exploiting commonalities between requests
 At the server site:
 Caching of JDBC connections between servlet
requests
 Caching results of database queries
– Cached results must be updated if underlying
database changes
 Caching of generated HTML
 At the client’s network
 Caching of pages by Web proxy

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 Triggers
 A trigger is a statement that is executed automatically
by the system as a side effect of a modification to the
database.
 To design a trigger mechanism, we must:
 Specify the conditions under which the trigger is to
be executed.
 Specify the actions to be taken when the trigger
executes.
 Triggers introduced to SQL standard in SQL:1999, but
supported even earlier using non-standard syntax by
most databases.

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 Trigger Example
 Suppose that instead of allowing negative account
balances, the bank deals with overdrafts by
 setting the account balance to zero
 creating a loan in the amount of the overdraft
 giving this loan a loan number identical to the
account number of the overdrawn account
 The condition for executing the trigger is an update to
the account relation that results in a negative balance
value.

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 Trigger Example in SQL:1999
create trigger overdraft-trigger after update on account
referencing new row as nrow
for each row
when nrow.balance < 0
begin atomic
insert into borrower
(select customer-name, account-number
from depositor
where nrow.account-number =
depositor.account-number);
insert into loan values
(n.row.account-number, nrow.branch-name,
– nrow.balance );
update account set balance = 0
where account.account-number = nrow.account-
number
end

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 Triggering Events and Actions in
SQL
 Triggering event can be insert, delete or update
 Triggers on update can be restricted to specific attributes
 E.g. create trigger overdraft-trigger after update of
balance on account
 Values of attributes before and after an update can be
referenced
 referencing old row as : for deletes and updates
 referencing new row as : for inserts and updates
 Triggers can be activated before an event, which can serve
as extra constraints. E.g. convert blanks to null.
create trigger setnull-trigger before update on r
referencing new row as nrow
for each row
when nrow.phone-number = ‘ ‘
set nrow.phone-number = null

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 Statement Level Triggers
 Instead of executing a separate action for each affected
row, a single action can be executed for all rows
affected by a transaction
 Use for each statement instead of for each
row
 Use referencing old table or referencing new
table to refer to temporary tables (called transition
tables) containing the affected rows
 Can be more efficient when dealing with SQL
statements that update a large number of rows

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 External World Actions
 We sometimes require external world actions to be triggered on a
database update
 E.g. re-ordering an item whose quantity in a warehouse has
become small, or turning on an alarm light,
 Triggers cannot be used to directly implement external-world
actions, BUT
 Triggers can be used to record actions-to-be-taken in a separate
table
 Have an external process that repeatedly scans the table, carries
out external-world actions and deletes action from table
 E.g. Suppose a warehouse has the following tables
 inventory (item, level ): How much of each item is in the
warehouse
 minlevel (item, level ) : What is the minimum desired level of
each item
 reorder (item, amount ): What quantity should we re-order at a
time
 orders (item, amount ) : Orders to be placed (read by external
process)

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 External World Actions (Cont.)
create trigger reorder-trigger after update of amount on
inventory
referencing old row as orow, new row as nrow
for each row
when nrow.level < = (select level
from minlevel
where minlevel.item = orow.item)
and orow.level > (select level
from minlevel
where minlevel.item =
orow.item)
begin
insert into orders
(select item, amount
from reorder
where reorder.item = orow.item)
end

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 Triggers in MS-SQLServer Syntax
create trigger overdraft-trigger on account
for update
as
if inserted.balance < 0
begin
insert into borrower
(select customer-name,account-number
from depositor, inserted
where inserted.account-number =
depositor.account-number)
insert into loan values
(inserted.account-number, inserted.branch-name,
– inserted.balance)
update account set balance = 0
from account, inserted
where account.account-number = inserted.account-
number
end

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 When Not To Use Triggers
 Triggers were used earlier for tasks such as
 maintaining summary data (e.g. total salary of each
department)
 Replicating databases by recording changes to special
relations (called change or delta relations) and having a
separate process that applies the changes over to a
replica
 There are better ways of doing these now:
 Databases today provide built in materialized view
facilities to maintain summary data
 Databases provide built-in support for replication
 Encapsulation facilities can be used instead of triggers in
many cases
 Define methods to update fields
 Carry out actions as part of the update methods instead of
through a trigger

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 Authorization in SQL (see also Section
4.3)

Forms of authorization on parts of the database:

 Read authorization - allows reading, but not modification of

data.
 Insert authorization - allows insertion of new data, but not
modification of existing data.
 Update authorization - allows modification, but not deletion
of data.
 Delete authorization - allows deletion of data

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 Authorization (Cont.)

Forms of authorization to modify the database schema:

 Index authorization - allows creation and deletion of indices.
 Resources authorization - allows creation of new relations.
 Alteration authorization - allows addition or deletion of
attributes in a relation.
 Drop authorization - allows deletion of relations.

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 Authorization and Views
 Users can be given authorization on views, without
being given any authorization on the relations used in
the view definition
 Ability of views to hide data serves both to simplify
usage of the system and to enhance security by allowing
users access only to data they need for their job
 A combination or relational-level security and view-level
security can be used to limit a user’s access to
precisely the data that user needs.

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 View Example
 Suppose a bank clerk needs to know the names of the
customers of each branch, but is not authorized to see
specific loan information.
 Approach: Deny direct access to the loan relation,
but grant access to the view cust-loan, which
consists only of the names of customers and the
branches at which they have a loan.
 The cust-loan view is defined in SQL as follows:
create view cust-loan as
select branchname, customer-name
from borrower, loan
where borrower.loan-number = loan.loan-
number

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 View Example (Cont.)
 The clerk is authorized to see the result of the query:
select *
from cust-loan
 When the query processor translates the result into a
query on the actual relations in the database, we obtain
a query on borrower and loan.
 Authorization must be checked on the clerk’s query
before query processing replaces a view by the
definition of the view.

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 Authorization on Views

 Creation of view does not require resources

authorization since no real relation is being created
 The creator of a view gets only those privileges that
provide no additional authorization beyond that he
already had.
 E.g. if creator of view cust-loan had only read
authorization on borrower and loan, he gets only read
authorization on cust-loan

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 Granting of Privileges
 The passage of authorization from one user to another
may be represented by an authorization graph.
 The nodes of this graph are the users.
 The root of the graph is the database administrator.
 Consider graph for update authorization on loan.
 An edge Ui  Uj indicates that user Ui has granted
update authorization on loan to Uj.

U1 U4

DBA U2 U5

U3
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 Authorization Grant Graph
 Requirement: All edges in an authorization graph must be
part of some path originating with the database
administrator
 If DBA revokes grant from U1:
 Grant must be revoked from U4 since U1 no longer has
authorization
 Grant must not be revoked from U5 since U5 has another
authorization path from DBA through U2
 Must prevent cycles of grants with no path from the root:
 DBA grants authorization to U7
 U7 grants authorization to U8
 U8 grants authorization to U7
 DBA revokes authorization from U7
 Must revoke grant U7 to U8 and from U8 to U7 since there is
no path from DBA to U7 or to U8 anymore.

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 Security Specification in SQL
 The grant statement is used to confer authorization
grant <privilege list>
on <relation name or view name> to <user list>
 <user list> is:
 a user-id
 public, which allows all valid users the privilege
granted
 A role (more on this later)
 Granting a privilege on a view does not imply granting
any privileges on the underlying relations.
 The grantor of the privilege must already hold the
privilege on the specified item (or be the database
administrator).

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 Privileges in SQL
 select: allows read access to relation,or the ability to query
using the view
 Example: grant users U1, U2, and U3 select authorization
on the branch relation:
grant select on branch to U1, U2, U3
 insert: the ability to insert tuples
 update: the ability to update using the SQL update
statement
 delete: the ability to delete tuples.
 references: ability to declare foreign keys when creating
relations.
 usage: In SQL-92; authorizes a user to use a specified
domain
 all privileges: used as a short form for all the allowable
privileges

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 Privilege To Grant Privileges
 with grant option: allows a user who is granted a
privilege to pass the privilege on to other users.
 Example:
grant select on branch to U1 with grant option
gives U1 the select privileges on branch and allows
U1 to grant this
privilege to others

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 Roles
 Roles permit common privileges for a class of users can be
specified just once by creating a corresponding “role”
 Privileges can be granted to or revoked from roles, just like
user
 Roles can be assigned to users, and even to other roles
 SQL:1999 supports roles
create role teller
create role manager

grant select on branch to teller

grant update (balance) on account to teller
grant all privileges on account to manager

grant teller to manager

grant teller to alice, bob

grant manager to avi

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 Revoking Authorization in SQL
 The revoke statement is used to revoke authorization.
revoke<privilege list>
on <relation name or view name> from <user list>
[restrict|cascade]
 Example:
revoke select on branch from U1, U2, U3 cascade
 Revocation of a privilege from a user may cause other
users also to lose that privilege; referred to as
cascading of the revoke.
 We can prevent cascading by specifying restrict:
revoke select on branch from U1, U2, U3 restrict
With restrict, the revoke command fails if cascading
revokes are required.

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 Revoking Authorization in SQL
(Cont.)
 <privilege-list> may be all to revoke all privileges the
revokee may hold.
 If <revokee-list> includes public all users lose the
privilege except those granted it explicitly.
 If the same privilege was granted twice to the same
user by different grantees, the user may retain the
privilege after the revocation.
 All privileges that depend on the privilege being revoked
are also revoked.

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 Limitations of SQL Authorization
 SQL does not support authorization at a tuple level
 E.g. we cannot restrict students to see only (the tuples
storing) their own grades
 With the growth in Web access to databases, database accesses
come primarily from application servers.
 End users don't have database user ids, they are all mapped
to the same database user id
 All end-users of an application (such as a web application) may
be mapped to a single database user
 The task of authorization in above cases falls on the application
program, with no support from SQL
 Benefit: fine grained authorizations, such as to individual
tuples, can be implemented by the application.
 Drawback: Authorization must be done in application code,
and may be dispersed all over an application
 Checking for absence of authorization loopholes becomes
very difficult since it requires reading large amounts of
application code

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 Audit Trails

 An audit trail is a log of all changes

(inserts/deletes/updates) to the database along with
information such as which user performed the change, and
when the change was performed.
 Used to track erroneous/fraudulent updates.
 Can be implemented using triggers, but many database
systems provide direct support.

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 Application Security
 Data may be encrypted when database authorization
provisions do not offer sufficient protection.
 Properties of good encryption technique:
 Relatively simple for authorized users to encrypt and
decrypt data.
 Encryption scheme depends not on the secrecy of
the algorithm but on the secrecy of a parameter of
the algorithm called the encryption key.
 Extremely difficult for an intruder to determine the
encryption key.

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 Encryption (Cont.)
 Data Encryption Standard (DES) substitutes characters and
rearranges their order on the basis of an encryption key which is
provided to authorized users via a secure mechanism. Scheme is
no more secure than the key transmission mechanism since the
key has to be shared.
 Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a new standard replacing
DES, and is based on the Rijndael algorithm, but is also
dependent on shared secret keys
 Public-key encryption is based on each user having two keys:
 public key – publicly published key used to encrypt data, but
cannot be used to decrypt data
 private key -- key known only to individual user, and used to
decrypt data.
Need not be transmitted to the site doing encryption.
Encryption scheme is such that it is impossible or extremely hard
to decrypt data given only the public key.
 The RSA public-key encryption scheme is based on the hardness
of factoring a very large number (100's of digits) into its prime
components.

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 9, 2005. 8.49 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Authentication
 Password based authentication is widely used, but is
susceptible to sniffing on a network
 Challenge-response systems avoid transmission of
passwords
 DB sends a (randomly generated) challenge string to user
 User encrypts string and returns result.
 DB verifies identity by decrypting result
 Can use public-key encryption system by DB sending a
message encrypted using user’s public key, and user
decrypting and sending the message back
 Digital signatures are used to verify authenticity of data
 E.g. use private key (in reverse) to encrypt data, and
anyone can verify authenticity by using public key (in
reverse) to decrypt data. Only holder of private key could
have created the encrypted data.
 Digital signatures also help ensure nonrepudiation: sender
cannot later claim to have not created the data

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 9, 2005. 8.50 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Digital Certificates
 Digital certificates are used to verify authenticity of public keys.
 Problem: when you communicate with a web site, how do you
know if you are talking with the genuine web site or an imposter?
 Solution: use the public key of the web site
 Problem: how to verify if the public key itself is genuine?
 Solution:
 Every client (e.g. browser) has public keys of a few root-level
certification authorities
 A site can get its name/URL and public key signed by a
certification authority: signed document is called a certificate
 Client can use public key of certification authority to verify
certificate
 Multiple levels of certification authorities can exist. Each
certification authority
 presents its own public-key certificate signed by a
higher level authority, and
 Uses its private key to sign the certificate of other web
sites/authorities

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 9, 2005. 8.51 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 End of Chapter

Database System Concepts

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
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Database System Concepts ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan