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Re: Document submitted for draft-ietf-ltans-notareq-01.txt





 -- Denis Pinkas --  a dit,  - le 27/10/2004 09:48:

Paul-André,

You said:

"We can probably have a shortexplanation in the foreword of the document, stating that in this document the word "data" has to be understood as the "electronic representation" of a "fact" (or "event")."

This is fully correct and I support this.
perfect

However thenafter you added:

"One specific case of such a "fact" is the submission or validation of a document at a given date and time (optionnaly by a specific user), one specific subcase being the validation of a X.509 certificate".

I wonder about this.

Someone (e.g. a notary) can testify hundreds of facts or events. There are millions of such facts or events. So we should neither focus on "submission or validation of a document at a given date and time" nor on "validation of a X.509 certificate".
I never said that the groupe "should focus" on "validation of a certificate" and I am sorry if my wording was so obscure that it could be understood as such.
Nevertheless, I still pretend that  the ability to obtain from a "Data  Certification Service" some form of "evidence", by means of a "data cert" (dated and signed by the DCS authority) that one has indeed verified at a given date and time that an X.509 certificate was checked and validated is indeed one example of "user's requirement" from such a service.
Don't read that this should be the goal (main goal, unique goal) of  LTANS, just that it cann't be excluded and it makes sense in addition to such services as OCSP. The "data cert" will "prove" for example that the signature attached to a given document had been verified by a specific user, at a given date (different from the signature date) using a given "validation service".  The actual role of the "Data Certification Service" will not be to perform "itself" the validation work but to certify that is has been done in the specific context (that is the "fact" that is certified")

Same could be said about "document validation and submission", the role of the DCS must be to deliver such a data cert and need not to include the actual perfomance of the validation itself. Exactly as a "notary" could establish a certificate that one of is customers has deposited some amount of money at a bank for a specific purpose, that the banknotes had been validated -by the bank- and that this bank has delivered a receipt. The "data-cert" certifies a fact and comes in addition to the bank receipt.

This being said, for the purpose of sharing the understanding, I agree that that mentionning "X509 certs validation" too early in the document and as a purpose and not as an example might be confusing, and I certainly do no invite the group to mention this use case event if I still claim that it belongs to the myriads of use cases relevant of such a service.

regards,

-- PAP

Denis


 -- Larry Masinter --  a dit,  - le 25/10/2004 18:28:

This new title will add even more confusion with the PKIX working group.
  

I'm sorry about the confusion over the title. We had put off
working through the document, so there was some rush to get
a new version out.

I'm a little uneasy about "Data Validation and Certification"
because in many of the use cases, the thing being validated
or certified isn't so much "data" as it is an "event" -- an
oath was administered, an agreement was understood, etc.
 

On one hand, you are right, in many cases what will be certified will not be an document, but as you say a fact or an event, but on the other hand, we are dealing with information systems and "facts" or "events" will have to be represented and it will be by some "data" (a combination of what, when, by whom ...)

As far as my understanding of the english language is correct, "data", as being the more general word(even vague, here it is a clear advantage over a more "accurate" or "connotated" term) is definitely the more appropriate.

We can probably have a shortexplanation in the foreword of the document, stating that in this document the word "data" has to be understood as the "electronic representation" of a "fact" (or "event") .
One specific case of such a "fact" is the submission or validation of a document at a given date and time (optionnaly by a specific user), one specific subcase being the validation of a X.509 certificate.
Another case being for example the receipt notification by a Long Term Archive service,
or the the "approval" of a document at a given time by at least 67% of the members of a given list of users.

Regards,

-- PAP

If we keep these use cases, can you think of other alternatives?

Larry




 


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--
PAP Sig
Edelweb
Groupe ON-X Pôle Sécurité
paul-andre.pays@xxxxxxxxxx papays@xxxxxxxx
http://www.edelweb.fr/ http://www.on-x.com/
Tel. + 33 1 40 99 14 14. Fax. +33 1 40 99 99 58 -- Adresse : 15, quai de Dion Bouton  -  92816 Puteaux cedex
Pour vérifier la signature électronique,
http://edelpki.edelweb.fr/ vous permet d'obtenir le certificat de l'autorité et la LCR.


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