PKI and Digital Signatures: From E-Commerce to E-Information Management
Presentation Abstracts
In Order of Presentation
Mark Silverman "The Nuts and Bits of PKI" (.ppt, 1.4MB)
The purpose of this presentation is to provide the audience with a general understanding of the workings of public key cryptography and digital signatures and how these technologies integrate into a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). This talk will also highlight the trust and policy issues that must be considered when implementing a PKI. Previous Page
Dr. Peter Alterman, "Developing a Federal Public Key Infrastructure" (.ppt, 148KB)
The U.S. Federal PKI model has gone through a number of versions over the past three years. The developers of the first model envisioned a single PKI embracing all Agencies and Departments of the U.S. Federal Government.
Working with an eye to specific requirements, the Department of Defense moved to implement this model within the military domain. As the civilian Agencies of the Federal government began to identify uses for PKI, it became clear that no single, government-wide PKI would be able to satisfy their requirements. The first model clearly would not hold. For a brief while, it seemed that interested Agencies would each field their own PKIs and interoperability among them would occur n a catch-as-catch-can basis.
With the signing of the Government Paperwork Elimination Act of 1998, all Federal Agencies became more interested in fielding PKIs to enable electronic government initiatives. Working through the U.S. Federal PKI Steering Committee, the Agencies planning to establish PKIs - especially the National Institute of Standards and Technology and elements of the Department of Defense, agreed to design, build and deploy a Bridge Certification Authority, that is, a "hub" CA whose function would be to simplify and enable cross-certification of discrete U.S. Agency PKIs and to allow different vendors’ PKI products to interoperate.
The Bridge CA prototype was built and tested in 2000 and is scheduled to be put into production service within the next few weeks. Over the next five years, the Federal PKI Steering Committee envisions the development of an international PKI consisting of cross-certified and interoperable bridge Cas. Previous Page
Jonathan Womer, "The Government Paperwork Elimination Act and E-Sign: The Intersection of Technology and E-Government Policies" (.ppt, 185 KB)
"I am supposed to go electronic but what are the rules?" This talk tries to make sense of all the statutory requirements, administration goals, and OMB policy that one must consider in making transactions electronic. Previous Page
Susan Cummings, "Records Management: Management Now and in the Future" (.ppt, 554KB)
This presentation will examine the electronic record environment in the Federal Government today and the approach the National Archives and Records Administration has undertaken to meet the needs of agencies and the public to create and preserve trustworthy records now and in the future. Previous Page
Keren Cummins, "Delivering Digital Signed Documents via the Web" (.ppt, 851KB)
Provides an overview and explanation of the services provided by Digital Signature Trust, Inc., the first licensed CA. Previous Page
