Document Authentication Workshop

U.S. Government Printing Office

June 18, 2010

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 Agenda
• Introductions and Welcome

• Authentication Background
– Authentication for Individuals

– Authentication for Automated, High Volume (Bulk data) applications/uses

• Standards and Methods for Bulk Data Authentication

• Chain of Custody Use Cases

• Re-authentication over Time

• Granular Authentication

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 Introduction
Focus for today’s dialogue:

• Authentication of publicly disseminated GPO electronic

documents on the Internet

What is OUTSIDE the scope of today’s dialogue:

• Authentication as applied to GPO products that are not

electronic documents publicly available on the Internet

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 Introduction
Desired Outcomes:

• Feedback from the constituencies represented here to GPO

to inform GPO decisions on future system deployments
– Input for RFI for future Industry Day with vendors at GPO

• GPO decision topics:

– Does the community require different levels of authentication
assurance on the same content (some parties willing to use less
robust means and others requiring the current digital signature
approach)?
– What standards and techniques to use for native XML
authentication?
– What techniques and standards should be used for “Chain of
Custody” (if content originators support it)?
– What are the community requirements for “Granular
Authentication”? 4
 Authentication Background
• GPO publishes PDF files digitally signed using
cryptographic digital signatures and PKI
– Signature method uses open standard (IETF
2315/5652, aka PKCS#7)
– PDF based on an open standard
• Positive feedback from all stakeholder and
user communities
• Easy to use and reliable for users and citizens

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 Authentication Background

• GPO publishes digitally signed PDF files

– Starting with President’s Budget in FY2009 on
GPOAccess web site
– Congressional Bills starting with the 110th
Congress on GPOAccess web site
– FDsys Beta starting in FY2009
– FDsys is signing all collections; as collections are
published signed PDF files available

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 GPO Authentication Goals
GGPO as the source for GPO disseminated documents vide assurance to document recipients or readers of:

• Provide assurance to document recipients or readers of:

– Source identity (publisher) for the document

– GPO as the source for GPO disseminated documents

• Provide assurance document not altered since publication

– Provide means of reliably detecting if document was altered

• Provide a method that supports authentic chain of custody

– Chain of custody can be reliably provided and not altered
– Provide a means of reliably detecting if the chain of custody was
altered
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 Authentication Background
• Factors that seem important to future direction:
– Authentication technique that is strong enough to
maximize the length of time it is valid
– Authentication technique that works even when
disconnected from the Internet
– Authentication technique that is based on established
international, open standards (as opposed to
proprietary methods)
– Authentication technique based on binary data (rather
than proprietary formats)

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 Authentication Background
• Factors that seem important to future direction:
– Authentication technique that is clear and simple
about the publisher of the document
– Authentication technique that is easily extensible,
using open international standards, to clearly and
simply displaying for the consumer the chain of
custody (provenance of the document)

• FEEDBACK ON THESE FACTORS. ARE THERE

OTHER IMPORTANT FACTORS?
– Participant feedback

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Authentication Techniques Beyond PDF
• Since Cryptographic Digital Signatures used and effective for PDF 
Cryptographic Digital Signatures seem natural for other data types

• Question: Is a 2nd assurance level technique like Hash based

schemes (that may not do all that digital signature does) needed for
a segment of the user community?

– See Comparative Table on Next Slide

• Follow on Question: If so, what standards should guide that 2nd

technique?

• FEEDBACK IS REQUESTED. IS SOME OTHER STANDARDIZED

TECHNIQUE “BETTER”?
– Participant feedback
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Comparison Among Authentication Techniques

COMPARATIVE FACTORS
Trusted Could Trusted Does it use Does the Does the Free Is the method Is offline
Third Party Third Party be Open method show method Client included in the NIST validation
Involved? GPO? Standards? the publisher facilitate software guidance for possible?
of the “Chain of available Electronic
document? Custody”? for users Authentication? (NIST
to Special Publication
validate? 800-63)
Method
Hash Based Yes Yes Yes (for Hash) No No* Yes No No
Method
Cryptographic Yes (Root Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
digital CA) (IETF RFC
signature 5652 for
binary data;
W3C
standards for
XML data)

*=No standards exist for this function

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Authentication Techniques Beyond PDF

• An option is to use PDF as a “carrier” to encapsulate

other file types
– Embed (encapsulate) other file types inside of a PDF file
– Disadvantages:
• Embedded files don’t have direct authentication – it would be tied
to the PDF file
• No standards for linking the authentication information between
all the files

• GPO conclusions, to this point:

– Not the best option
– Examine other options (next slides)
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 Authentication Standards
for Automated, High Volume applications
Options :
• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) XML
authentication standards
– Based on cryptographic digital signature
• IETF 5652 (PCKS #7)
– Uses cryptographic digital signature
– Is used by many other standards (S/MIME v3, IETF RFC
3851, for example)

• FEEDBACK FROM PARTICIPANTS

– Input from participants
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 Native XML Authentication
Options :
• Enveloped Signature
– Signature is embedded within the document containing the
signed content

• Enveloping Signature
– Signature contains the signed content itself, all within the
document

• Detached Signature
– Signature is separate from the content

• Pros and Cons of these approaches on the following slides

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 Native XML Authentication
Enveloped Signature
– Signature is embedded within the document containing the
signed content

Consequences:
- The signature is a Child of the content
- Document needs a placeholder to hold the signature

Advantages:
- Signature and content are coupled together
- Easy to validate
- Offline validation possible

- Signed/unsigned content have the same format

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 Native XML Authentication
Enveloping Signature
– Signature contains the signed content

Consequences:
- The signature is the Parent of the content being signed
- Processing the document requires processing the signature syntax

Advantages:
- Signature and content are coupled together
- Easy to validate
- Offline validation possible
Disadvantages:
- Signed and unsigned content have different formats  More
complicated software for viewing

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 Native XML Authentication
Detached Signature
– Signature is completely separate from the content

Consequences:
- Processing of the signature and the document are separated
- The no difference at all between signed and unsigned content

Advantages:
- If the content is a “mash up” of many disparate, separate documents,
then this might be somewhat less complicated to manage

Disadvantages:
- Somehow the signature and the content must be linked together and
tracked  No standards for this  Higher costs and more complex
user experience
- Same disadvantage as the embedded files in PDF (discussed earlier)
- Since signed content and unsigned (non-authenticated) content are
exactly the same, this could cause user confusion 17
 Native XML Authentication
Preliminary GPO Conclusions, to date:
• Current signed PDF approach uses Enveloped signatures
– This seems to bode well for the Enveloped Signature approach
• For the case in which there is no content originator signature, this is the
simplest, most effective model
– Since there is less to go wrong and positive experience with PDF
• For cases in which a content originator signature along with disseminator
signature is desired (chain of custody use cases), the Enveloped Signature
approach does require a common “template” or specification between
content originators and publishers
– XML requires coordination between GPO and content originator as it is, and
we already coordinate closely together on many things
• For the Chain of Custody case, it seems more complex to use either the
Enveloping Signature method or the Detached Signature method
– More complex in terms of building and maintaining software
– Thus, to preserve potential for efficient and effective capability for the “Chain
of Custody” use cases, start with Enveloped Signature method
• ENVELOPED APPROACH may be good way to start

FEEDBACK REQUESTED FROM PARTICIPANTS

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– Input from participants
 Chain of Custody Use Cases
Chain of Custody for GPO published documents:

- Indication of the content originator  Provenance

Note that this requires:

- participation by content originators (external to GPO) – GPO
can’t dictate
- Education process for all the content originator agencies – value
of adding this process at their site
- GPO is communicating on this
- May also require coordination on common specification for
signature location – not unexpected, but a potential challenge

Policy and operational implications for the federal agencies

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 Chain of Custody Use Cases
• Factors:
– Is ability to view the entire chain custody with the document
important?
– Open Standards based seems to be required
– If the chain of custody is completely present/preserved with the
document, is this of value?
– For XML and PDF files, the W3C and PKCS #7 methods allow full chain
of custody to travel with the document
– Seems simpler and less complex
– No standards exist for the protocol for the “detached ” signature methods
– The W3C and PKCS #7 methods allow full chain of custody to validated and viewed when
off-line

• Other Use Cases?

• FEEDBACK REQUESTED
– Input from Participants

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 Re-Authentication over time
• The Challenges:

#1: Standard algorithms and techniques change over long time horizons.

Examples:

– SHA-1 hash algorithm is not recommended for new signing after

January 1, 2011
– 1024 bit RSA keys are not recommended for signing

#2: Issues could arise without warning on any standard algorithm

or technique, requiring re-authentication using stronger/different
technique.

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 Re-Authentication over time
Current GPO Planning:
– Maintain awareness of requirements and changes in
authentication standards (continuous)
– Periodically assess requirement to re-authenticate any content
(annually; more frequent as awareness of changes and
requirements dictate)
– Start any re-authentication required well in advance of known
requirements changes
• Use automated, high volume authentication engines to re-
authenticate
– Canvas industry and suppliers for technical systems that can
make such a re-authentication process as efficient and hands-off
as possible (plan to do this near term)

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 Granular Authentication
• The problem statement:
1) Ability to authenticate an arbitrary portion of a document
• Example: 1 page out of 500 page document
2) Ability to locate text and relate it to a GPO authentic
publication (published document)

• Goal:
– An authenticated answer in a reasonable time period

• Feedback on GPO concept (next slide)

– Concept addresses 2nd capability above (locate text)
– Would such a concept be useful and be of value to end users?
– Is it something GPO should investigate getting funded and built?

• FEEDBACK FROM PARTICIPANTS

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Granular Authentication Concept – For Discussion

End User GPO - FDsys

Step 1:
User wants to obtain granular
1 authentication from GPO

Step 2:
FDsys supplies an input window 2
Input elements/options for user:
1) Input Box for text
2) Document name (optional)

Step 3:
User enters input data
3 and requests search

Step 4:
FDsys searches GPO Authenticated documents
for an exact match on the text (filename used to
start search on)
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FDsys returns a list of documents with this
matching text to user

Step 5:
a) User decides if one of the documents returned in
Step 4 meets their desire for granular authentication
b) If a) YES, then User selects the one (and only 1) of

5 the documents from Step 4

Step 6:
FDsys returns a document, which is digitally
signed by GPO in real-time, that contains:
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- The Text and the GPO published document
that GPO can authenticate
- URL of the document the text was found in

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 Wrap Up
Thank you for your time and participation!

GPO will post information concerning this workshop

at the URL below:

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/authentication/

Information to be posted:
- today’s slides (handout) (soon)
- transcript of the today’s proceedings (5-10 days)
- summary report from GPO (4-6 weeks)
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 Wrap Up
Email comments to GPO concerning this
workshop to:

[email protected]

Input will be accepted through July 9, 2010

The input received will be factored into the

Summary Report GPO posts on this workshop
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