[QA-0p70] Digital Signature Comment

Eve,

One of the comments on 0p70 is from David Burdett 
and goes into digital signatures.  We (the QA Team) would like your 
feedback on this one. Is this out of scope, should this be discussed at the Face 
to Face?

 

Lisa

 

David's comment:

 

"UBL documents cannot be digitally signed 
directly."

 

His proposed solutions:

 

"Add an optional XML Dsig element to the root of 
each document and guidelines on how it should be used.
Often the authenticity 
of a UBL document will need to be determined using cryptographic techniques. One 
way of doing this is to sign the document together with the envelope in which it 
is contained as, for example, ebXML Messaging provides [1]. However, this means 
that you HAVE to keep the message around in order to later prove authenticity 
when the message is being processed. This adds to complexity and only works if 
messaging protocols such as ebXML Messaging are being used.
A better 
alternative is to include an XML DSig digital signature [2] element as an 
*optional* element at the root level of every UBL document. I would also 
recommend that a guideline is provided that describes how XML digital signatures 
should be used inside a UBL document in order to improve 
interoperability.
[1] ebXML Messaging specifications, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ebxml-msg/#documents
[2] 
W3C XML Digital Signature Specification, http://www.w3.org/TR/xmldsig-core/  

QA Team recognized importance of this area. Security was out of scope for 
0p70, but will be taken up at F2F."

 

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lisa 
Seaburg
AEON LLC
Website: http://www.aeon-llc.com/
Email:  
Alternative 
Email: 
Phone: 
662-562-7676
Cellphone: 662-501-7676

 

"Remember that great love and great achievements 
involve great 
risk."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++