Yes Chatspace does use this.. as in this case your pass is the opercert
in the con fig-file, it's set with the opercert file instead of a password
so when you /oper name *
it compares the key files you load in mIRC to the cert on the server.

So you still need to auth or the opercerts wont work, and you will have no ops.. if you forget when you send your script by mistake with oper in it it wont work with out the original opercert and private file.