Long-Term Archive and Notary Services (ltans)

WG description
This IETF group addresses long-term archive and notary services. The kick-off meeting was at the 58th IETF in Minneapolis. This site (http://ltans.edelweb.fr/) provides:
Documents
information background documents concerning this activity,
Related projects
and links to other related sites and projects, and
Mailing list
to the mailing lists host.

Working group description

Chairs:

Tobias Gondrom
<tobias.gondrom@gondrom.org>
Carl Wallace
<CWallace@cygnacom.com>

Description of the working group

In many scenarios, users need to be able to ensure and prove the existence and validity of data, especially digitally signed data, in a common and reproducible way over a long and possibly undetermined period of time. Cryptographic means are useful, but they do not provide the whole solution. For example, digital signatures (generated with a particular key size) might become weak over time due to improved computational capabilities, new cryptanalytic attacks might "break" a digital signature algorithm, public key certificates might be revoked or expire, and so on. Complementary methods covering potential weaknesses are necessary.

Long-term non-repudiation of digitally signed data is an important aspect of PKI-related standards. Standard mechanisms are needed to handle routine events, such as expiry of signer's public key certificate and expiry of trusted time stamp authority certificate. A single timestamp is not sufficient for this purpose. Additionally, the reliable preservation of content across change of formats, application of electronic notarizations, and subsequent notary services require standard solutions.

The objective of the LTANS working group is to define requirements, data structures and protocols for the secure usage of the necessary archive and notary services. First, the requirements for the long-term archive will be collected. Based on that information we will develop a protocol to access archive services supplying long-term non-repudiation for signed documents and define common data structures and formats. Upon completion of the archive-related specifications, we will address 'notary services' in a similar way. The term 'notary services' is not clearly defined. The working group will determine which functions need standards, including transformation of documents from one format to another without losing the value of evidence, electronic notarization, and further verification of legal validity of signed documents. We will determine the needs via the requirements paper and act upon the results accordingly.

Work done by the IETF Working Groups PKIX, S/MIME and XMLDSIG will be used as the basis to define those structures and protocols. For example, the Internet-Drafts "Archive Time-Stamps Syntax (ATS)" and "Trusted Archive Protocol (TAP)" and RFC 3029, "Data Validation and Certificate Server Protocols (DVCS)", contain applicable concepts.

Mailing list

A mailing list including an archive is hosted by the IMC.
General Discussion:
ietf-ltans@imc.org
To Subscribe:
ietf-ltans-request@imc.org
and in the body:
subscribe
Archive:
http://www.imc.org/ietf-ltans/

Documents

This section provides pointers to working group documents and other information.

Working group documents

Requirements
RFC 4810
Evidence Record Syntax
RFC 4998
Requirements for Data Validation and Certification Services
draft-ietf-ltans-notareqs
Long Term Archive Protocol
draft-ietf-ltans-ltap
Long Term Archive Protocol presentation IETF Paris 2005
LTAP presentation
Retrieving ERS via SCVP
RFC 5276
Extensible Markup Language Evidence Record Syntax
RFC 6283

Related documents

The following list contains documents produced as discussion input for this working group.

Related Projects

If you know other documents and projects, please feel free to notify me.

The AFNOR (French ISO body) has an active working group concerning services of an authority for evidences and proofs. They have produced initial documents for comments. The historical documents are in French.

In February 2011 AFNOR has decided to launch a new standard NF42-020 concerning a functional description of an conversation device that ensure long term integrity. ON-X has largely contributed, and in particular to the core functions using our experience with LTAP. After a public inquiry which terminated on February 10th, 2012 and having treated almost 200 comments, the group declared consensus to publish the agreed text.

task force on archival of digital information

OpenEvidence

ArchiSig

Interpares

Erpanet

David

OAIS

Kompetenznetzwerk Langzeitarchivierung

FedISA: Fédération de l'ILM, du Stockage et de l'Archivage

LTDPRM :Long-Term Digital Preservation Reference Model

Maintenance of this site: Peter Sylvester <peter.sylvester@edelweb.fr>