David L. Wasley Office of the President University of California Maybe it’s not PKI … Musings on the business case for PKI EDUCAUSEEDUCAUSE PKI Summit - August 2004 David L. Wasley University of California

2 Why do you want PKI? v Strong identity credentials? l Yes v Digital signatures? l Yes v Does everyone need those? l Not today … v Credentials that other organizations can trust? l Federated identity management is more flexible v So what’s the cost/benefit proposition?

3 Maybe it’s asymmetric cryptography v Asymmetric crypto (AC) has important, unique capabilities l Privacy of shared documents s Wherever they go l Integrity of documents s Any digital document, e.g. photographs … l Authenticity of documents s If you know who had access to the private key v The last bullet is what PKI is about

4 Where do you need Privacy? v Sharing confidential documents l E.g. workgroup environments v Exchanging sensitive l E.g. HIPAA requirements for PHI messaging v Sensitive document archiving l Who has access to the backup tapes, e.g.? v Your application here …

5 Where do you need Integrity? v Is the you forwarded to me really what the originator sent? v Is this version of the 150 page contract in MSWord unchanged from what I sent you? v Is this web site really what the authors put up? v Critical document archiving v Etc…

6 Where do you need Authenticity? v Is this a photograph taken at the crime scene? v Yes - Acme, Inc. agrees to this contract l Sez who? v Can I believe this ID credential? l Trusted roots, bridges, etc… v Is this the official archived version? v Anywhere you need to know who vouches for the content, and that the content is what s/he vouches for.

7 Where do you need strong credentials? v Business processes where there is risk that can be mitigated in this way v Where digital signatures are important l Who archived this document? v Where smartcards provide protection against credential sharing v Etc…

8 Where do you need PKI? v Where ever you need to know who owns a particular private key v Strong ID credentials are one example l Smartcards help protect the private key v The technology can be used more broadly if only it was there… l E.g. S/MIME (!) l I think this is why we should support today’s PKI

9 “PKI” may be different in the future v Today’s PKI is pretty rigid l Especially the vendor products l How about signed XML credentials with easily extensible content? l How about “personal PKI” for friends, groups, …? v Signing and encryption should be an integral part of the computing environment, available to any application in a consistent, standards based methodology.

10 Asymmetric Cryptography can … v help address vulnerabilities in information management v help ensure document integrity where it matters v help mitigate risk in e-business by adding some level of authenticity to transactions v be an important tool in our IT environments v …

11 So what does this all mean? v Yes, we need a PKI l For certain applications now l For lots of applications eventually v Start with the applications that need AC l Digital signatures l Document integrity l Strong ID credentials v The rest will follow because the infrastructure will be there