[ebxml-msg-comment] A "Trivial" Secure e-business Question

A "Trivial" Secure e-business 
Question

Assume that you have a business message like a purchase 
order

    
<Order>
        <From name="Big 
Buyer 
Corp.">
            
<OurRef name="John Doe"/>
        
</From>
        <To name="MegaCar 
International"/>
        <Item>10 
Medium-sized SUVs</Item>
        
<Comment>Make it quick please!</Comment>
    
</Order>

Now assume that "Big Buyer Corp." is an advanced 
organization using digital signatures.

Question:  How should the identity as expressed in a business 
document relate to the identity as expressed by the signer's certificate?

Among the complications we find

  
The PKI-identity is presumably "strong" as it is vouched for by a CA, 
  while the identity in the business document is only "claimed" by the entity 
  itself.  ==> The PKI identity is governing?

  
The hierarchical naming system used by PKI (X.500) is completely 
  different to the various naming schemes used in businesses.

  
Some PKI-folks claim that signatures should be tied to individuals.  
  Does this mean that the signer's certificate in the sample should identify 
  John Doe of Big Buyer Corp.?

  
The receivers (relying parties) are automated processes supposed to 
  securely handle similar messages from numerous business parties.

  
Current e-commerce standards like ebXML and Web Services does not 
  address this basic question.

One can note that the only PKIs working on a global scale, are 
building on a one-to-one identity mapping between the entity's perceived 
identity and the identity as expressed in the certificate.  Yes, I of 
course refer to e-mail and web-server certificates.   
Other aspiring users of PKI, like e-commerce, have not even begun 
to look into this issue as apparently nobody feels that it is 
"their business".  Who are we wainting for?  The IETF, OASIS, W3C, EU, 
or the UN?  Or are we maybe waiting for Microsoft and 
VeriSign?.

A LONG-TERM REMEDY

To create a 
foundation for a more robust and "frictionless" PKI-secured e-business, I 
strongly believe that there long-term should be a one-to-one 
mapping between [basic] business message identities and certificate 
identities.  As the business community is never going to adopt X.500 
naming, as well as having their own naming problems, this will likely 
require changes on both sides.  A possible scheme using the currently 
only globally functioning naming system (DNS/URIs), is that entities are 
uniquely defined by two elements:

- A naming domain (name space) based on 
a URI like: "http://www.visa.com/cc"
- A local 
identifier in that domain like: 4555-5555-2244-8888

Although the example 
identified a credit-card, the scheme works for just about any kind of object or 
entity.  An advantage of using HTTP URIs is that you usually can get 
further information "by clicking on the link".

Regards
Anders Rundgren
Senior Internet 
e-commerce Architect

+46 70 - 627 74 
37