- Link:
- http://eprints.erpanet.org/8/
- Collection:
-
- Subjects
- BC Authenticity and Integrity CC Encapsulation
- Creator:
- Gladney, H.M.
- Description
- How can a publisher store digital information so
that any reader can reliably test its authenticity, even years
later when no witness can vouch for its validity? What is the
simplest security infrastructure sufficient to protect and later
test evidence of authenticity? In ancient times, wax seals
impressed with signet rings were affixed to documents as evidence
of their authenticity. A digital counterpart is a message
authentication code fixed firmly to each important document. If a
digital object is sealed together with its own audit trail, each
user can examine this evidence to decide whether to trust the
content—no matter how distant this user is in time, space, and
social affiliation from the document’s source. We suggest technical
means for accomplishing this: encapsulation of the document content
with metadata describing its origins, cryptographic sealing, webs
of trust for public keys rooted in a forest of respected
institutions, and a certain way of managing document identifiers.
These means will satisfy emerging needs in civilian and military
record management, including medical patient records, regulatory
records for aircraft and pharmaceuticals, business records for
financial audit, legislative and legal briefs, and scholarly works.
This is true for any kind of document, independently of its
purposes and of most data type and representation details, and
provides each user with autonomy for most of what he does.
Producers can prepare works for preservation without permission
from or synchronization with any authority or service agent.
Librarians can add metadata without communicating with document
originators or repository managers. Consumers can test authenticity
without Internet delays, apart from those for fetching
cryptographic certificates. Our method accomplishes much of what is
sought under labels such as “trusted digital repositories”, and
does so more flexibly and economically than any method yet
proposed. It requires at most easy extensions of available content
management software, and is therefore compatible with what most
digital repositories have installed and are using
today.
- Type
- Preprint
- Format
- pdf
http://eprints.erpanet.org/8/01/TDO_Evidence_Prelim_pdf.pdf
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