Subject: Role of attribute certificates in long-term archiving

From: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 22:11:00 +0100

Hi all,
I am reading the archiving conference very carefuly and I hope that my
idea abou attribute certification usage could be useful for your long
term archiving standard creation.
 
Identification of  a user accessing the archive is interesting problem.
But I think it is solved in the RFC-3281 and it is not necessary to
specify it more. We should use the RFC-3281 which is of "Standard Track"
category. It would be enough to solve the structure of archived
documents because the attribute certificates (RFC-3281) will be always
bound to some subtree of this structure.

It would be difficult to find out something what is more suitable for
attribute certificate usage than the long-term archiving. Any archive
will be different (third party archiving service, specialized archive
for company or for notaries etc.) Realize that the person storing the
document into the archive is rarely the real document owner.

One example: invoice. According to the company internal orders, an
accountant marks the archiving time in the invoice and stores the
document into an archive. The archived invoice is owned not by the
accountant but by the company. The accountant cannot e.g. delete the
invoice in the archive. 

During the archiving lifetime of the document, an inspection of a state
tax office can come. Another company employee must pick up the invoice
copy from the archive and submit it for the inspection. 

When the archived invoice lifetime is over, the invoice must be
cancelled (destroyed) from the archive. And again another person of the
company is responsible for canceling. This person must decide whether to
cancel document or whether to archive it later (for example, if the
company is in bankruptcy, it is required to archive documents later) or
put the document for the permanent archiving (e.g. invoice for crown
jewelry.)

Attribute certificate can vary in time according to e.g. changes in some
database of clients of archive. They are bound with the user's
certificate. The conclusion is: we can issue attribute certificates for
(in this case):

-         Accountant (rights for invoice archiving)

-         Manager (rights for picking invoices up from the archive to
inspect them)

-         Officer responsible for document canceling

-         In case of open document we can have also an attribute
certificate (view right) for all who sign the commitment not to abuse
the document

Attribute certificate are very flexible and can be issued for e.g. one
day because the people roles and access rights can change quickly. The
permanent bind of a concrete role to a concrete person does not exist.

Cordially Marta

Marta Vohnoutova PVT a.s. Czech Republic

[email-masked]

---

From: "Santosh Chokhani" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 21:19:35 -0500

Marta:
 
There does not seem to be any benefit gained by using the attribute
certificate format for archived data.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of [email-masked]
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2004 4:11 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Role of attribute certificates in long-term archiving

Hi all,
I am reading the archiving conference very carefuly and I hope that my idea
abou attribute certification usage could be useful for your long term
archiving standard creation.
 
Identification of  a user accessing the archive is interesting problem. But
I think it is solved in the RFC-3281 and it is not necessary to specify it
more. We should use the RFC-3281 which is of "Standard Track" category. It
would be enough to solve the structure of archived documents because the
attribute certificates (RFC-3281) will be always bound to some subtree of
this structure.

It would be difficult to find out something what is more suitable for
attribute certificate usage than the long-term archiving. Any archive will
be different (third party archiving service, specialized archive for company
or for notaries etc.) Realize that the person storing the document into the
archive is rarely the real document owner.

One example: invoice. According to the company internal orders, an
accountant marks the archiving time in the invoice and stores the document
into an archive. The archived invoice is owned not by the accountant but by
the company. The accountant cannot e.g. delete the invoice in the archive. 

During the archiving lifetime of the document, an inspection of a state tax
office can come. Another company employee must pick up the invoice copy from
the archive and submit it for the inspection. 

When the archived invoice lifetime is over, the invoice must be cancelled
(destroyed) from the archive. And again another person of the company is
responsible for canceling. This person must decide whether to cancel
document or whether to archive it later (for example, if the company is in
bankruptcy, it is required to archive documents later) or put the document
for the permanent archiving (e.g. invoice for crown jewelry.)

Attribute certificate can vary in time according to e.g. changes in some
database of clients of archive. They are bound with the user's certificate.
The conclusion is: we can issue attribute certificates for (in this case):

-         In case of open document we can have also an attribute certificate
(view right) for all who sign the commitment not to abuse the document

Attribute certificate are very flexible and can be issued for e.g. one day
because the people roles and access rights can change quickly. The permanent
bind of a concrete role to a concrete person does not exist.

Cordially Marta

[email-masked]

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2004 07:53:53 +0100

> There does not seem to be any benefit gained by using the attribute
certificate format 
> for archived data.

I think the digital archive must have at least the same features as
classical stone archive. My personal expirience is if you want to
explore some old documents in archive  you must first prove your
identity, explain your purpose why you need these documents, and based
on this the appropriate permitions for the specific part of archive is
given to you.

Analogically in digital world, you can prove your identity with
certificate and attributte certificate represents appropriate permitions
given to you.

Identity of person who put document into archive 50 years ago could be
irrelevant.

Marta