merkle trees

AI security interview questions tagged merkle trees, across every topic.

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Cryptography & PKI

Certificate Revocation and Certificate Transparency in DepthRevocation tells clients to stop trusting a certificate before it expires; Certificate Transparency makes every publicly trusted certificate visible. In 2026 browsers do not ask CAs online: Firefox checks a local CRLite filter covering all revocations, Chrome uses a small CRLSet, and many non-browser clients check nothing, so lifetime is often the real limit. CT logs are Merkle trees: an inclusion proof for a two-billion-entry log is 31 hashes. Monitors and witnesses make logs honest, and CT has exposed mis-issuance repeatedly, but only when someone watches.

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