A comparison between traditional public key infrastructures and identity-based cryptography

Abstract With the recent acceleration in research into identity-based public key cryptography (ID-PKC), we consider this to be an opportune moment to compare and contrast ID-PKC with more traditional public key infrastructures (PKI). Because of the similarity in the nature of both approaches, we aim to identify the distinguishing features of each approach. In doing so, we highlight the important questions to be asked when weighing up the benefits and drawbacks of the two technologies.