Patent Application: US-7712805-A

Abstract:
a method and system for long term electronic document archiving . the system collects a certificate revocation information for a certificate from a certificate authority that indicates the validity of the certificate used in an electronic document . the certificates are collected from a certificate authority . the system then generates at least two layers of signature and timestamp from the electronic document , certificate revocation information collected , and the collected certificate . cryptographic primitives of different strength are used , and the two layers of signature and timestamp generated have different cryptographic strengths . the signature is generated using a system signing key whereas the timestamp is generated by an external entity . a digital aging token is then formed by combining the original electronic document , certificate revocation information , and certificate collected to the layers generated .

Description:
the present invention now will be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings , in which preferred embodiments of the invention are shown . the present invention may be embodied in many different forms and should not be constructed as limited to the embodiment set forth herein . these embodiments are provided so that this document will be thorough and complete , to those skilled in the art . in the drawings , like numerals designate corresponding parts throughout the several views . the present invention proposed a new scheme , called “ digital aging ” scheme . the scheme guarantees that valid evidence for integrity and authentication of a particular electronic document is always presented . fig3 a and 3b are the core part of the digital aging process . fig3 a illustrates the integrity protection function 10 which is responsible for providing basic protection of integrity of a given message 1 . we define the integrity protection function 10 as ν i , which combined the signature function 2 σ i and the timestamping function 3 τ i , to protect the integrity of a given message 1 . when a signature is presented together with the time - stamp , the creation time of a particular signature can be verified , providing that the time - stamp can be verified . the time dimension is captured by the time period identifier i as it is in the signature function 2 σ i ; and the timestamping function 3 τ i . the subscript i is the time period identifier , where the system believes that the function is secure and will not be compromised before the time moment t i + 1 . the input for the signature function 2 σ i is the message i and the signing key 4 of the digital archive system ( dar ). the output of the function 2 is the signature 6 of the message 1 signed with the key 4 . the message 1 and the signature 4 become the input 8 of the function 3 , together with the signing key 5 of the timestamping authority ( tsa ). timestamp 7 of the input is the output of the function 3 . together with the message , signature , the integrity protection function is defined as again , the subscript i is the time period identifier , where the system believes that the function is secure and will not be compromised before the time moment t i + 1 . although signing keys should be input to the signing function and time - stamping function , this is assumed to be done by the digital archive system ( dar ) and the timestamping authority ( tsa ). user clients should not have any access to the keys . fig3 b illustrates the core of digital aging , the digital aging function 20 α i . the input of the function α i is the document token 11 x i . the document token 11 contains the signed message and the certificate used . the function findcrls 13 retrieves the most updated certificate revocation information ( crl ) 15 of the certificates which have been used in the document token x i . findcertchain 12 collects the certificates 14 that will be used in the function ν i 17 and ν i + 1 18 . in this document , we refer such kind of certificate revocation information as crl , for it is widely adapted as a standard kind of certificate revocation information in the pki . however , such kind of certificate revocation information is not limited in the present invention and can be applied to other standards such as ocsp , crt and delta crl . ν i 17 is the integrity protection function 10 described in fig3 a . ν i 17 is secure and sufficient for providing document integrity and authentication protection before the time moment t i + 1 , but may not be secure afterwards . ν i + 1 18 , on the other hand , is secure before the time moment t i + 2 and it is more complicated than ν i . thus the output 22 of α i consists of two layers of signature and time stamp . fig1 illustrates the process and method of digital aging 30 . the process of digital aging is described with the aid of the digital aging function 20 α i . in a digital archival system , a user client 23 first submits a document , which can be either signed or unsigned by him , to the archival system . this process is called document registration 25 . in this process , dar will collect the user certificate if the document is signed . denote this moment as to , the document as doc and the certificate as cert . sub . user . dar will create the digital aging token x o which is the combination of doc and cert . sub . user . in this document , we denote digital aging token by the notation x i . then the registration process will pass the document token x o to the normal digital aging process 28 . x i will be retrieved from the archive at time moment t i . message , certificates , signatures and timestamps in x i will be verified . if the digital aging token is valid , then the new document token x i + 1 will be created by α i with the aging token x i . since x i consist of two layer of signature and timestamp , and in which at least one layer is verified as valid in the current time , we can discard the outer layer or the invalid layer of the aging token x i and form the modified layer x ′ i . then , the algorithm listing of the digital aging layering algorithm is illustrated in fig4 a , which is an equivalent translation of the above process . after normal digital aging 28 is carried out , the next time for the next normal digital aging process has to be scheduled for the token x i + 1 . the time scheduled for next digital aging is set to the time moment before the most recent expiry date among the certificates stored in that document token x i + 1 . this is done by the schedule update process 32 . before reaching the schedule time , dar and tsa may constantly update their signing keys . as times goes by , an algorithm which was secure in the past may not be secure anymore . one example is that longer modulus of rsa public key encryption system would bring to the system a more secure signing function . therefore , dar and tsa may also periodically update their cryptographic algorithms such as the signing function and the timestamping function . these events are detected by the normal key update process 31 . when normal key update process detects these events , the process will request the system to set a closer schedule for updating the document token with the new cryptographic algorithms or cryptographic keys . in normal digital aging process 28 , the system has assumed ν i 17 is secure before t i + 1 however , if the underlying cryptographic primitive or cryptographic keys used by ν i is broken at some time moment t where t lies in the time interval ( t ; t i + 1 ), then the system will be aware of it . this is done by the exceptional key update process 27 . the system will perform the exceptional digital aging process 29 . t i + 1 will then be set to t . although signature and time - stamp produced by ν i at t i can not be verified , the signature and time - stamp produced by ν i + 1 is still secure and can be verified . still , we use the digital aging function to perform digital aging , where x i + 1 = α i ( x ′ i ), and x ′ i contains only the valid layer of x i . whenever a digital aging token x i is updated , the token is first verified . this is denoted by the verification process 26 . to verify a token , the signature and timestamp inside the token are verified first . if they are valid at the current time moment , we can assume the content related to the signature and time stamp are valid from time period t i to t i + 1 . therefore we can further verify the token x i + 1 inside the token x i recursively . the process does not stop until one of the tokens cannot be verified or the token is proved to be valid from t o to t i + 1 . the verification algorithm is listed in fig4 b . whenever a client requests retrieving the document from the system , the whole document token x i will be retrieved to the client by the retrieval process . the client may then employ the verification algorithm listed in fig4 b to validate the token . the verification algorithm in fig4 b illustrated how digital aging , which is provided by the present invention , protects electronic documents for long term using two layer of signature and timestamp . in contrast , a scheme with one layer of signature and timestamp cannot achieve such property . first , the present invention protects the document from failure of a system using one layer of signature and timestamp . a system with only one layer of signature and timestamp relies heavily on the assumption that an attack on the cryptographic primitive used is not feasible . this assumption may be valid for short term archival , but may not be valid in long term archival as the technology advances . in the present invention , when such assumption is no longer valid , the other layer of signature and timestamp could provide additional protection when one layer of the signature and timestamp is compromised . second , the system with only one layer of signature and timestamp will suffer from a single point of failure as the security relies on the fact that the signing key is not compromised and not expired . in the present invention , such failure is eliminated as the security relies on two layers of signature and timestamp , and a renewal of digital aging token can be carried out to produce additional layers when the signing key of one layer is compromised . thirdly , the present invention supports the updating of cryptographic primitives while the integrity of the protected document can still be proved by the renewal technique of digital aging . this is essential for long term archival as technology updates should be required for long term protection . fig8 illustrates a computer system 100 , which includes the digital aging module 98 in accordance to the present invention . the computer system 100 includes a processor 91 , a memory 92 , a storage device 93 , a - system interface 95 , a communication link 94 , a conventional operating system 96 , application programs 97 , and a digital aging module 98 . via the system interface 95 , the processor 91 communicates with other components . the application programs 97 and the operating system 96 are loaded into the memory 92 . the operating system 96 communicates with the application programs 97 , and the processor 91 executes the application programs 97 through the operating system 96 . the application programs 97 include the digital aging module 98 . like the application programs 97 , the digital aging module 98 is executed by the processor 91 through the operation system 96 . the storage device 93 acts as a secondary storage memory device for storing data . the communication link 94 is provided to enable the communication of the computer system 100 to other computer systems . an input device , such as a keyboard , mouse etc ., and an output device , such as a display , speaker , printer , etc ., may also included . because these input and output devices are well known in the art , they are not described in detail here . it will be apparent to a person skilled in the art that the digital aging module of the present invention may be embodied as a method , apparatus , or computer program . the digital aging module 98 may be embodied in the form of hardware , or software , or a combination of software and hardware . moreover , the digital aging module 98 may take the form of computer program on a computer system storage device or medium having the computer program embodied thereof . the computer system storage device or medium , for use or in connection to the computer system , may include an electronic , magnetic , optical , or other means that can store or contain a computer program for use by the computer system or method . the processor 91 may contain one or more computational processing units or computational devices . the memory 92 may be volatile , non - volatile , or a combination of both . the memory 92 and the storage device 93 are both computer readable medium , which includes , but is not limited to , ram , rom , ebprom , flash memory , or other memory technology , cdroms , dvds , or other optical storage , magnetic cassettes , magnetic tape , magnetic disk storage , or other magnetic storage devices , or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by the processor 91 . the memory or the storage device may store the application programs 97 or its portion for the execution of the application program . a portion of the memory 92 or the storage device 93 may be utilized by the processor 91 , the operating system 96 , the application programs 97 for executing the digital aging module 98 . when the application programs 97 or the digital aging module 98 is in a stage other than the execution stage , the program or the module may reside in the memory or the storage device . the application programs 97 may be any suitable computer programs , which can be executed by the processor 91 through the operating system 96 , to carry out the digital aging process including normal aging 28 and exceptional aging 29 . the application programs 91 may includes , for example , the digital aging program , the document archival program , and document retrieval program , in order to carry out the digital aging process . the digital aging module 98 is a component of the application programs 97 or may be one of the application programs 97 itself . the digital aging module 98 may be invoked automatically when the application is invoked or can be invoked by a user . the user may invoke the program via the communication link 94 , or via an input device such as keyboard connected to the system . according to the present invention , the digital aging module 98 carries out the digital aging process as described in fig1 , which includes , but is not limited to , the generation of digital aging token , verification of digital aging token and digital aging scheduler . the application collects certificate revocation information and certificate by communicating with an external certificate authority through the communication link , to enable the digital aging module to carry out the digital aging process . moreover , the application also communicate with an external timestamping authority for the generation of time stamp which is required by the digital aging module . fig2 illustrates the software architecture 40 of a document archival system implementing a digital aging scheme . the system consists of two external types of users : document owner 33 and document verifier 34 . in addition , there should be at least two external entities : the certificate authority 36 , which is responsible for issuing certificates and certificate revocation information , and the timestamping authority 37 , which is responsible for issuing timestamp and verifying timestamp . in our system , we do not specify whether the timestamping authority 37 employs a special digital timestamping technique . however , the timestamp issued by timestamping authority 37 must be time stamped . in one embodiment , the system consists of four modules and a data warehouse 35 . the registration module 38 is responsible for the registration process mentioned in fig1 . the retrieval module 45 is responsible for document retrieval as in the document retrieval process in fig1 . apart from being a traditional digital archival system , the archival module 39 connects to the digital aging module 41 where digital aging is carried out . inside the digital aging module , there are three sub - modules : token generation 42 , token verifier 43 and aging scheduler 44 . specifically , the digital aging module is equivalent to the digital aging module in fig8 and resides in the computer system in fig8 . the token generation module 42 performs the logic in the normal aging module 28 and exceptional aging process 29 in fig1 , which includes , but is not limited to , collecting certificates used , certificate revocation information used , generating two layers signature and timestamps . the token verifier 43 performs the logic in the verification process 26 in fig1 , and the aging scheduler 44 performs the schedule update process 32 in fig1 . the data warehouse 35 contains the document aging tokens , certificates and the certificate revocation information . fig2 also illustrates the difference between the digital archival system without digital aging and the one with digital aging scheme . in the system without digital aging , the archival module 39 and retrieval module 45 are connected to the data warehouse . in the present invention , the archival module 39 and the retrieval module 45 are connected to the digital aging module 41 , which is connected to the data warehouse . this also illustrates how the present invention can be implemented into existing software architecture . fig5 illustrates the generic structure of a digital aging token . the first layer of the digital aging token 51 is x o , which consist of the document 52 and the certificate 53 used . as illustrated in previous section , the generation of x o &# 39 ; s next digital aging token of 59 , which is denoted as x i , involve the collection of certificate 54 that will be used and the revocation information 55 of the certificate used in the digital aging token 51 x o . with all of this information , the next digital aging token 59 x i is generated by the α i function 20 with i = 1 , which is comprised of the ν o and ν i functions . the outputs of these two functions are illustrated as the shaded area 56 , 57 . according to the present invention , the digital aging token 59 is then scheduled for another update . when such update is necessary , the information stored in the token x i 59 will be retrieved according to this structure . upon verification , one of the shaded areas 56 , 57 will be retained for the generation of next digital aging token , which is described in digital aging layering algorithm in fig4 a . the certificate used in this update will be stored in the area 58 . the next digital aging token 64 x 2 is generated by the a 2 function 20 with i = 2 which comprise the ν i and ν 2 functions . the outputs of these two functions are illustrated as the shaded area 61 , 62 . as times goes by , digital aging is carried out again and again . after the i - th iteration of digital aging is carried out , the generic structure of the digital aging token x i is illustrated as 73 , where x i contains the output of ν i − 1 and ν i functions and the digital aging token 69 x i − 1 . every other digital aging token x j , which is inside x i , also contains this structure except that it may only consist of one output of the ν j − 1 and ν j functions . fig6 illustrates the generic layout 80 of a digital aging token . this layout is the graphical representation of the data structure of a digital aging token , which can be implemented by computer . a generic aging token x i consists of the following data : ( 1 ) “ the valid from ” 82 of the aging token ( 2 ) the certificates used 83 in x i ( 3 ) the crl used 84 in x i , which is referring to the certificate used in x i − 1 ( 4 ) the first layer 85 signature and timestamp , which is the output of ν i ( 5 ) the second layer 86 signature and time stamp , which is the output of ν i + 1 ( 6 ) and another digital aging token 87 which this digital aging token renewed . fig7 illustrates the xml data type definition 90 ( dtd ) of digital aging token . the xml consist of a root element “ digitalaging ”, which has a child element “ agingtoken ”. the structure of “ agingtoken ” element is a modification of the generic layout in fig6 , and it consists of child elements : “ validthru ”, “ agingtoken ”, “ relatedinformation ”, “ signature ” and “ timestamp ”. each of these elements contains an attribute “ id ”, which labels the layer of the digital aging token to which they belongs . “ relatedinformation ” consist of one or more “ x509data ” child element , which stores the certificates and certificate revocation information . while the invention has been described with reference to a preferred embodiment , it is to be understood that various different modifications are possible and are contemplated as being within the spirit and scope of the invention , as set forth in the appended claims . d . bayer , s . haber , and w . s . stometta . improving the efficiency and reliability of digital time - 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