Subject: [ltans] Concrete examples of long-term archiving

From: "Martin Augusto G. Vigil" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 18:21:45 +0200

Hi,

I am a PhD student and I have been working on a survey on long-term authenticity and proof of existence. I have found many solutions (e.g. ERS, Patricia Trees, etc), projects (e.g. ArchiSig, Prokopius, HP's Content Integrity Service) and even acts (Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Directive 2001/115/EC) but few real life examples in which long-term archiving is required and was already used.

May someone point some concrete examples?

Kind regards,
----
Martín A. Gagliotti Vigil
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Cryptography and Computer Algebra
Hochschulstraße 10
64289 Darmstadt, Germany
Room: S2/02 B216
Tel.: +49 6151 16-5416

---

From: todd glassey <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2011 09:56:25 -0700

> I am a PhD student and I have been working on a survey on long-term authenticity and proof of existence. I have found many solutions (e.g. ERS, Patricia Trees, etc), projects (e.g. ArchiSig, Prokop…
Digital Conversion of Public Records is probably the best and 
lowest-hanging fruit for the models possible. This includes Records 
Offices of Clerks and other government functions. One of the key things 
moving forward will be property records. The same will be true for 
Notaries in parts of the world where a Notary keeps a formalized copy of 
anything they execute.

Todd
> _______________________________________________
> ltans mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltans
>

-- 
Todd S. Glassey
This is from my personal email account and any materials from this account come with personal disclaimers.

Further I OPT OUT of any and all commercial emailings.

---

From: Ernst Jan van Nigtevecht <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2011 19:55:01 +0200

Dear Martin,
As far as I know, the British Library uses the ERS standard to proof the 
integrity through time of the digital collection. (I have to check for 
some more info; it's some time ago I heard about it.)

Regards

Ernst Jan

---

From: todd glassey <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:12:28 -0700

On 8/4/2011 10:55 AM, Ernst Jan van Nigtevecht wrote:
> Dear Martin,
> As far as I know, the British Library uses the ERS standard to proof 
> the integrity through time of the digital collection. (I have to check 
> for some more info; it's some time ago I heard about it.)
Hmm - according to my spies this apparently is what was used.

http://www.thales-esecurity.com/EN/Products/Time%20Stamping/Time%20Stamp%20Server.aspx

>> I am a PhD student and I have been working on a survey on long-term 
>> authenticity and proof of existence. I have found many solutions 
>> (e.g. ERS, Patricia Trees, etc), projects (e.g. ArchiSig, Prokopius, 
>> HP's Content Integrity Service) and even acts (Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 
>> Directive 2001/115/EC) but few real life examples in which long-term 
>> archiving is required and was already used.
>>

---

From: "Aljosa Jerman Blazic" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2011 10:00:20 +0200

> http://www.thales-
> esecurity.com/EN/Products/Time%20Stamping/Time%20Stamp%20Server.as
> px

This is only time-stamping device which does not implement ERS, only
RFC3161 protocol
(http://www.thales-esecurity.com/EN/Products/Time%20Stamping/Time%20Stam
p%20Server.aspx#2). However it may be used to include archive timestamp
into ERS record... That must be separate service, not part of Thales
solution.

BR

Aljosa

---

From: "Liaquat Khan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2011 11:12:56 +0100

Some clarifications, the British Library Digital Library Programme uses
timestamps to satisfy the needs expressed in this publicised programme of
work http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/foi/transparency/contracts/contractEIS7397.pdf

This document describes the project that was awarded to Ascertia to replace
the Thales DSE 200 units with Ascertia ADSS TSA Servers.  The document also
describes the use of evidence records to preserve the integrity of the
original data.  The British Library long-term archiving scheme pre-dates the
ERS RFC, however a similar approach of extensible long-life timestamped
evidence records are used.  Other British Library publications describe
their data storage approach.

Regards
LK

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
Aljosa Jerman Blazic
Sent: 05 August 2011 09:00
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [ltans] Concrete examples of long-term archiving

This is only time-stamping device which does not implement ERS, only
RFC3161 protocol
(http://www.thales-esecurity.com/EN/Products/Time%20Stamping/Time%20Stam
p%20Server.aspx#2). However it may be used to include archive timestamp into
ERS record... That must be separate service, not part of Thales solution.

BR

Aljosa

---

From: todd glassey <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2011 07:58:11 -0700

On 8/5/2011 3:12 AM, Liaquat Khan wrote:
> the Thales DSE 200 units with Ascertia ADSS TSA Servers.
When did this happen? What was the date of the award?
> The document also
> evidence records are used.
yes I know...
>   Other British Library publications describe

---

From: Tobias Gondrom <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 08 Aug 2011 01:39:58 +0100

Hi Martin,

in general you can find real life examples when larger organisations are 
dealing with critical documents (that in paper form would be signed and 
often documenting high value issues) for a longer time frame.

For example:
- the German federal government uses ERS for signed data.
There is even a guideline for all German government agencies on how to 
use it:
https://www.bsi.bund.de/ContentBSI/Publikationen/TechnischeRichtlinien/tr03125/index_htm.html
(unfortunately in German, sorry)
* one scenario is for example documents signed in internal workflows and 
documents being delivered to an agency through a so-called agency 
"inbox-system".
- other real life examples are:
* long-term storage of documents, like pension contracts, sorry can't be 
more specific due to confidentiality
* patient records in health care (in some jurisdictions the health care 
provider (e.g. hospital) is responsible to guarantee the integrity and 
authenticity of all archived patient records for the whole lifespan of 
the patient (and to be able to proof that). In the past this was done 
via paper documents, etc. But when such an institution moves/moved to 
electronic records and documents, electronic signatures were used and 
also required ERS to protect against broken algorithms.
* electronic invoices: EU directive on electronic invoices requires them 
to carry a qualified signature to be used for pre-tax allowances. And as 
in some jurisdictions it may take years until the tax auditor validates 
the records, signature algorithms may become weak and require ERS to 
renew their strength.
* or think of blueprints and documentation for air-planes and ammunition 
during their manufacturing process, to be stored for the whole lifetime 
they may be in use.

But to add a pinch of salt: My personal observation is that the vast 
majority of cases of long-term authenticity and proof of existence is 
still using pure simple paper documents stored somewhere physically safe 
in a bunker/paper archive - like we did the last few hundred years....
(Some companies/government agencies have developed the technical 
capabilities to do this electronically with ERS, but most of them 
haven't yet).

Hope that helps, Tobias

---

From: Istvan Zsolt BERTA <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 10:38:58 +0200

Dear Martín,

In Hungary, the authentic long-term archival of electronically signed 
documents is included in the e-signature law. Aside qualified CAs, we 
also have qualified archiving service providers.

The Hungarian Chamber of Notaries is running an archival project since 
2007. Certain classes of notarial deeds are archived electronically. The 
notary creates the notarial deed on paper, scans it (as PDF), signs it 
with her qualified electronic signature and sends it to the archives 
(our company is a qualified archiving service provider, we run these 
archives). A few million notarial deeds are archived this way currently.

Notaries create their signatures in XAdES-A format, and in the archives 
these signatures are archived in an LTANS ERS -like format. We do not 
use ERS because when our system was started, ERS RFCs were not available 
yet, but our logic is very similar to ERS.

Electronically signed documents are also used (and archived) in context 
of the Hungarian registry of businesses. If you want to found a company 
in Hungary, you need to turn to a lawyer, and your lawyer submits the 
necessary electronically signed documents to the business registry 
court. The judge at the registry court also creates an electronically 
signed resolution.
Lawyers are required to archive these electronically signed documents, 
e.g. using a qualified archiving provider. This system also involves 
millions of documents, but only a small fraction of them is archived 
currently. (There are already certain resolutions that were not archived 
properly and their timestamps expired. They are problematic.)

Unfortunately I have very little written information on this in English 
(our English website is rather just a placeholder):

http://www.berta.hu/publications/Berta2007efpe.pdf (of year 2007)
http://www.berta.hu/publications/Berta2011efpe.pdf (of year 2011)
http://srv.e-szigno.hu/menu/index.php?lap=english_archiving
http://srv.e-szigno.hu/menu/index.php?lap=english_firm_registry

If you have any further questions, feel free to ask, and I shall do my 
best to answer.

Regards,

István

2011.08.04. 18:21 keltezéssel, Martin Augusto G. Vigil írta:
> Kind regards, ---- Martín A. Gagliotti Vigil Technische Universität
> Darmstadt Cryptography and Computer Algebra Hochschulstraße 10 64289
> Darmstadt, Germany Room: S2/02 B216 Tel.: +49 6151 16-5416
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________ ltans mailing list
> [email-masked] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltans

---

From: todd glassey <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 06:13:39 -0700

> also have qualified archiving service providers.
Is there a Design Specification available?

Todd
> 2007. Certain classes of notarial deeds are archived electronically. 
> The notary creates the notarial deed on paper, scans it (as PDF), 
> signs it with her qualified electronic signature and sends it to the 
> archives (our company is a qualified archiving service provider, we 
> run these archives). A few million notarial deeds are archived this 
> way currently.
>
> Notaries create their signatures in XAdES-A format, and in the 
> archives these signatures are archived in an LTANS ERS -like format. 
> We do not use ERS because when our system was started, ERS RFCs were 
> not available yet, but our logic is very similar to ERS.
>
>
> Electronically signed documents are also used (and archived) in 
> context of the Hungarian registry of businesses. If you want to found 
> a company in Hungary, you need to turn to a lawyer, and your lawyer 
> submits the necessary electronically signed documents to the business 
> registry court. The judge at the registry court also creates an 
> electronically signed resolution.
> currently. (There are already certain resolutions that were not 
> archived properly and their timestamps expired. They are problematic.)
>
>
> Unfortunately I have very little written information on this in 
> English (our English website is rather just a placeholder):
>

---

From: Istvan Zsolt BERTA <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:25:25 +0200

Dear Todd,

> Is there a Design Specification available?

What do you mean on Design Specification? We have the archiving service 
listed in our e-signature law, and this law prescribes the requirements 
a qualified archiving service provider must fulfill.

There is an English version here:
http://www.docshare.com/doc/199777/hungary

Our authorities also released some 'guidance' on the technical 
requirements and policy requirements, but I think they are going to be 
superseded by the recently released ETSI specifications:

ETSI TS 101 533-1 Information Preservation Systems Security; Part 1: 
Requirements for Implementation and Management
http://webapp.etsi.org/workprogram/Report_WorkItem.asp?WKI_ID=31009

ETSI TR 101 533-2 Information Preservation Systems Security; Part 2: 
Guidelines for Assessors
http://webapp.etsi.org/workprogram/Report_WorkItem.asp?WKI_ID=34232

None of these requirements go into details like prescribing certain 
formats, etc.

Regards,

István

---

From: todd glassey <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:39:50 -0700

On 8/12/2011 8:25 AM, Istvan Zsolt BERTA wrote:
> What do you mean on Design Specification? We have the archiving 
> service listed in our e-signature law, and this law prescribes the 
> requirements a qualified archiving service provider must fulfill.
>
yes!
> http://webapp.etsi.org/workprogram/Report_WorkItem.asp?WKI_ID=34232

http://pda.etsi.org/exchangefolder/ts_10153301v010101p.pdf

This is really funny - it was written by Engineers and not Audit 
professionals. Its the problem with all of the ETSI Guidance about time 
and evidence as far as I can tell.

_*What actually is UTC?
*_Look for instance at A.10.10.6 - the Clock Synchronization. I bet most 
of the engineers who wrote this have no idea what UTC is. I mean they 
know it comes from the BIPM but the have no idea how the UTC values are 
computed or when they are computed.

For instance I DONT MEAN THIS AS A NASTY COMMENT - but I bet the LTANS 
group (as a whole)  generally doesn't know that UTC is a computed value 
which is produced in arrears of the moment that it is actually stated to 
represent.  The problem is that most of the NTP team don't know this 
either.

UTC is not a notice of now then but rather an instance in time which 
will be (or was) agreed to by a group of Metrological Wizards when the 
Circular-T work is completed and the next UTC time fixing is completed.  
In fact most all have no idea that the instant in the now which we think 
of as UTC is actually the last instance of UTC + some number of Atomic 
Second of incremental time.

The actual UTC instant is derived from the log data submitted monthly 
(and that is the key concept here - monthly) by the 55 Master Timing 
Laboratories who participate in the generation of Schedule-T... So here 
is how it works - the master timing labs all submit the last months 
timing data to the BIPM's CIPM and the UTC team then queries IERS.ORG 
and a couple of other entities and poof - about thirty (30) days later - 
they declare a UTC timing fixing for a point in time which functionally 
was probably about 50 to 60 days ago...

What's funnier is how spoofable GPS or even basic NTP is... these are 
the highly reliable transports talked about in the ETSI guidance excerpt 
which follows:
-----------------------------------------------------
A.10.10.6 Clock synchronization
Long Term Preservation specific controls:

   1. The IPSP shall have in force an auditable procedure, based the
      outcomes of the Risk Assessment, ensuring that all the applied
      time references, in relation to the IPS, are reliably fetched from
      a trusted UTC time source and maintained unaltered throughout the
      entire IPS.
   2. All IPSP time references shall be UTC based, e.g. "UTC+1, "UTC+2",
      etc., to make it possible to reconcile all of them to a consistent
      chronology.
   3. The IPSP shall ensure that all logging records express the time in
      a unique manner, even when the IPSP systems are located in
      different time zones.

NOTE: This can be achieved either by synchronising all IPS related 
systems on the same time zone or by
explicitly stating the systems time through UTC based notation (e.g. 
"UTC-6").
-----------------------------------------------------
What that means is in the world of Metrology there are time-frames about 
what and when in the UTC process which no one sees. So how does this 
affect long term document storage? - Simple the timestamps need to be 
rewritable.
> None of these requirements go into details like prescribing certain 
Which is why zI pushed back to hard against the ETSI methods - they also 
were written by people who refused to put practice statements into them 
meaning they are functionally worthless. OK not worthless but pretty 
close. Look no use guidelines means they are incomplete standards since 
they leave it up to the end users to come up with their own operating 
models. This was always the issue with any IETF models - they simply 
dont come with "you use it this way" documentation which would constrain 
the design and its use fully.