Secure Messaging - The Achievements and the Challenges
Mike Lambert, Director of The Open Group Messaging Forum introduced the
day.
The presentation included a brief
introduction to The Open Group and the Messaging Forum, and a summary of the current
approaches to Secure Messaging.
The presentation highlighted the challenge posed by the lack of capabilities in small
companies to handle the complexity of managing secure messaging systems, and in particular
handling certificates and encryption keys/digital signatures.
The presentation concluded with a brief summary of the US DoD's External Certificate
Authority program.
Creation of an Infrastructure for Trustworthy eBusiness
Peter Steiert, from TeleTrusT Deutschland, described a project to create a
European Bridge Certificate Authority.
The presentation started by describing the
problem posed by the creation of "PKI-islands".
Creation of a "super CA" to which all others are subordinate is not an
acceptable solution. Bilateral relationships create an escalating level of complexity and
are complicated by interoperability issues.
The chosen approach is a Bridge Infrastructure, where the Bridge is on a peer level
with other CAs, which:
- Allows for the generation of a trust relationships through exchange of certificates and
cross-certification
- Provides a proxy directory service, which can handle interoperability issues
- Allows for the validation of certificates via an OCP service
All of this is supported by Certificate Policies and contractual relationships.
Digital Signatures and Cross-Recognition
Franco Ruggieri, an Italian consultant in Electronic Signature, presented a
summary of the use of Electronic Signatures in Italy.
The presentation started with an analysis
of applicable legislation, including the European Electronic Signature Directive
1999/93/EC that allows legal effectiveness of electronic signatures.
There are approximately 15 accredited Certification Authorities in Italy.
Cross-certification is achieved via the CNIPA list, effectively a Bridge-CA for public
administration. [CNIPA = National Center for IT in Public Adminsitration]. The public key
to access the CNIPA list is published in the Official Journal of the Italian Republic. CAs
change. A major requirement is to retain historical information to establish the validity
of a signature, when the document was signed.
The presentation included several case studies demonstrating the extensive use of
electronic signatures in Italy and concluded with an analysis of the impact of the
European Electronic Signature Standardisation Initiative (EESSI).
Usable Cryptography for eGovernment
Dr. Christian Mrugalla, from the Federal Office for Information Security in
Germany (BSI), presented an architecture for secure interaction with the German Federal
Government. In German, the infrastructure is called the "Virtuelle Postelle
(VPS)".
The presentation started with a brief
introduction to the BSI and the commitment of the German Federal Chancellor in 2000 that
"all suitable services of Germany's administration will be available online by
2005".
Cryptography is necessary for confidentiality, authentication, and electronic
signatures. End-to-end cryptography is not practical. "Overall end-to-end
cryptography in eGovernment is dead - before it has even been alive!"
The VPS system is an answer to this problem. Encryption and decryption are centralized
within one organization, with an XML-based document interface for external communication.
Client plug-ins will provide for secure interaction from outside which is transparent to
the user.
Secure Messaging Challenge
Stephan Wappler, from Noventum, presented
a description of The Open Group Secure Messaging Challenge.
The challenge, set by the Boeing Company was to enable organizations to exchange
strongly encrypted email using a standards-based, vendor-neutral architecture that does
not require manual key exchange.
Key exchange was achieved through LDAP proxies, supported by appropriate Certificate
Policies, Certification Practice Statements, and Relying Party Agreements.
The testing infrastructure included several email systems (including a simple
SMTP-based system, Lotus Notes, and Microsoft EXchange) and several directory systems
(including the OpenLDAP Open Source technology).
The project, culminating in a public demonstration, successfully met the challenge. The
project was documented in The Open Group Secure Messaging Toolkit.
Encrypted Mail Virus Scan
Klaus Schmeh and Marco Smeja, from CryptoVision, presented an architecture for handling secure email
that allows for virus checking at the mail gateway.
End-to-end encryption of email has an undesirable side effect: virus checkers at the
mail gateway cannot operate on encrypted mails. Conventional approaches to address this
compromise security, or need the sender to be aware of the receiver's email security
policy. Transferring responsibility for email checking to the client system of the
recipient is unmanageable.
The Cryptovision approach involves the creation of a temporary session key which allows
the mail gateway to decrypt and examine an incoming mail. Once checked, the original
encrypted mail is delivered to the recipient. This means that the email is never
transmitted unencrypted, and the sender does not need to take any special action.
S/MIME Gateway Certification
Mike Lambert, Director of the Messaging Forum, completed the agenda by presenting the S/MIME Gateway Certification
program being developed by The Open Group in partnership with the Massachusetts Health
Data Consortium.
The US Healthcare Community need encrypted email to meet the needs of the HIPAA
directive. The approach needs to be within the existing capabilities of Healthcare
companies. Encryption at the domain gateway level meets this need. Products are available
from several vendors, but these are not interoperable.
The S/MIME Gateway Certification program uses certification from The Open Group to
guarantee that products conform to a newly developed profile of the S/MIME specification
that ties down some options that inhibit interoperability and defines a simple mechanism
for key exchange.
The S/MIME Certification program will start operating in May 2004.
