Abstracts - 3rd USENIX Workshop on Electronic Commerce
The Eternal Resource Locator: An Alternative Means of Establishing Trust on the World Wide Web
Ross J. Anderson, Václav Matyásv Jr., and Fabien A.P. Petitcolas
University of Cambridge
Abstract
Much research on Internet security has concentrated on generic
mechanisms such as firewalls, IP authentication and protocols for
large scale key distribution. However, once we start to look at
specific applications, some quite different requirements appear. We
set out to build an infrastructure that would support the reliable
electronic distribution of books on which doctors depend when making
diagnostic and treatment decisions, such as care protocols, drug
formularies and government notices. The integrity, authenticity and
timeliness of this information is important for both safety and
medico-legal purposes. We initially tried to implement a signature
hierarchy based on X.509 but found that this had a number of
shortcomings.
We therefore developed an alternative means of managing trust in
electronic publishing. This has a number of advantages which may
commend it in other applications. It does not use export-controlled
cryptography; it uses much less computation than digital signature
mechanisms; and it provides a number of features that may be useful in
environments where we are worried about liability. We also present our
intermediate solution - the first ever large scale deployment of
one-time signature systems. The move to one-time signatures enabled
considerable simplification, cost reduction and performance
improvement. We believe that similar mechanisms may be appropriate for
protecting other information that changes slowly and remains available
over long time periods. Book and journal publishing in general appear
to be strong candidates.
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