IFX Mail Archive: IFX> RE: PDF digital signatures and encryp

IFX> RE: PDF digital signatures and encryption

From: McDonald, Ira (imcdonald@sharplabs.com)
Date: Tue Aug 13 2002 - 16:59:59 EDT

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    Hi Gail,

    I took a look at the PDF embedded digital signatures spec (URL below).
    It looks good. I'd choose the larger (PKCS#7 X.509) certificate
    format, because it's much more widely interoperable than the Raw
    PDF signature format.

    Could PDF digital signatures replace the use of TLS in IPPFax?

    No - they would _complement_ the use of TLS in IPPFax?

    In GSTN fax, the SENDER is implicitly verified and verifiable
    to the RECEIVER (public GSTN switching fabric has logs of the
    calls).

    But a given document also has an AUTHOR (often not the SENDER)
    and it's that AUTHOR who is verified with a PDF digital signature.

    For example, a tachnical manager who is based in a San Francisco
    office (the SENDER) sends a copy of the digitally signed contract
    from a manager in Purchasing in the New York office (the AUTHOR)
    to the RECEIVER. TLS verifies the SENDER. PDF DS verifies the
    AUTHOR.

    Cheers,
    - Ira McDonald

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Gail Songer [mailto:gsonger@peerless.com]
    Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 2:25 PM
    To: McDonald, Ira
    Subject: PDF digital signatures and encryption

    Hi Ira,

    PDF has the ability to support digital signatures and data encryption as
    part of the file format. I was reading through some of Adobes
    documentation and it looks pretty cool but I was wondering if you would be
    willing to supply a second opinion. You know a lot more about this than I
    do.

    Could IPPFax use this instead of TLS?

    http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/acrosdk/docs/ppk_pdfspec.pdf

    Gail



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