Long-Term Use Case

It refers to generating electronic signatures with signature keys previously generated by the TRIDENT and certified by the corresponding PKI. These certificates belong to users who have a stable relationship with an organization (for example, they may be its employees), during which time they have to generate electronic signatures regularly. As a result, these certificates are valid for several months and must be renewed when they expire. Other names that describe this use case are Signing with certificates generated in the usual way and Signing with long-lived certificates (this one to contrast with the other use case).

Short-Term Use Case

It refers to generating electronic signatures with signature keys that are generated and certified on the go. That is, without requiring that the signing keys have been previously generated and certified separately or that the users hold a relationship with the organization (single use users). These certificates are short-lived (for example, one day), as they are only used occasionally, and maintenance is not required. An example of this scenario is the signatures occasionally generated by customers of a TRIDENT client. These customers do not need permanently active signing keys in the TRIDENT but only when a specific interaction with the organization requires them to generate a specific signature. Other names that describe this use case are Signing with ad-hoc certificates, Signing with short-lived certificates, and Signing with on-the-go certificates.