mrose@UDel-Dewey.ARPA (07/02/85)
From: Marshall Rose <mrose@UDel-Dewey.ARPA>
[ You normally don't see this type of message sent out... ]
Some friends and I have been working on a paper for an upcoming
IFIP symposium, which may be of some interest to you. I've
included an abstract of the paper. If you'd like a copy of the
current paper (in draft form), reply to this message saying so
(MRose@UDEL in the ARPA Internet). The paper will NOT be
transmitted electronically, so you'll need to supply a USPS
address.
The paper's about a "trusted mail" system. We believe that it lets
you send "secure" mail by encrypting it, and by handling ALL key
management automatically (after the initial bootstrap). The
prototype system has been running since December of last year in a
4.2BSD environment.
Before I give the abstract, here are the usual disclaimers: 1. When
the paper gets published, IFIP will hold the copyright on the
paper, until then my friends and I (aka TTI) do. 2. This message
is not meant to be an endorsement of ANY kind. I believe that this
system is the first of it's kind in a non-military environment, and
I would like comments back from an informed populace (i.e., the
net).
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Accepted by IFIP TC-6: Second International Symposium on Computer Message
Systems
Design of the TTI Prototype Trusted Mail Agent
Marshall T. Rose
David J. Farber
Stephen T. Walker
ABSTRACT
The design of the TTI prototype Trusted Mail Agent (TMA) is
discussed. This agent interfaces between two entities: a key
distribution center (KDC) and a user agent (UA). The KDC manages
keys for the encryption of text messages, which two subscribers to
a key distribution service (KDS) may exchange. The TMA is
independent of any underlying message transport system.
Subscribers to the KDC are known by unique identifiers, known as
IDs. In addition to distributing keys, the KDC also offers a simple
directory lookup service, in which the ``real-world'' name of a
subscriber may be mapped to an ID, or the inverse mapping may be
performed.
This document details three software components: first, a prototype
key distribution service, which has been running in a TCP/IP
environment since December, 1984; second, a prototype trusted mail
agent; and, third, modifications to an existing UA, the Rand MH
Message Handling system, which permit interaction with the
prototype TMA.
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