Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-cat-idup-gss-09.txt

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 1997 13:18:13 -0500

A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.
This draft is a work item of the Common Authentication Technology Working Group of the IETF.

	Title		: Independent Data Unit Protection Generic 
                          Security Service Application 
                          Program Interface  (IDUP-GSS-API)
	Author(s)	: C. Adams
	Filename	: draft-ietf-cat-idup-gss-09.txt
	Pages		: 61
	Date		: 04-Dec-97
	
   The IDUP-GSS-API extends the GSS-API [RFC-2078] for applications
   requiring protection of a generic data unit (such as a file or
   message) in a way which is independent of the protection of any other
   data unit and independent of any concurrent contact with designated
   ''receivers'' of the data unit.  Thus, it is suitable for applications
   such as secure electronic mail where data needs to be protected
   without any on-line connection with the intended recipient(s) of that
   data.  The protection offered by IDUP includes services such as data
   origin authentication with data integrity, data confidentiality with
   data integrity, and support for non-repudiation services.  Subsequent
   to being protected, the data unit can be transferred to the
   recipient(s) - or to an archive - perhaps to be processed
   (''unprotected'') only days or years later.
 
   Throughout the remainder of this document, the ''unit'' of data
   described in the above paragraph will be referred to as an IDU
   (Independent Data Unit).  The IDU can be of any size (the application
   may, if it wishes, split the IDU into pieces and have the protection
   computed a piece at a time, but the resulting protection token
   applies to the entire IDU).  However, the primary characteristic of
   an IDU is that it represents a stand-alone unit of data whose
   protection is entirely independent of any other unit of data.  If an
   application protects several IDUs and sends them all to a single
   receiver, the IDUs may be unprotected by that receiver in any order
   over any time span; no logical connection of any kind is implied by
   the protection process itself.
 
   As with RFC-2078, this IDUP-GSS-API definition provides security
   services to callers in a generic fashion, supportable with a range of
   underlying mechanisms and technologies and hence allowing source-
   level portability of applications to different environments. This
   specification defines IDUP-GSS-API services and primitives at a level
   independent of underlying mechanism and programming language environ-
   ment, and is to be complemented by other, related specifications:
 
      - documents defining specific parameter bindings for particular
        language environments;
      - documents defining token formats, protocols, and procedures to
        be implemented in order to realize IDUP-GSS-API services atop
        particular security mechanisms.

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