November 2001
Intermediate to advanced
788 pages
27h 27m
English
Content preview from Web Security, Privacy & Commerce, 2nd Edition
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Working Cryptographic Systems and Protocols
A cryptographic system is a collection of software and hardware that can encrypt or decrypt information. A typical cryptographic system is the combination of a desktop computer, a web browser, a remote web server, and the computer on which the web server is running. A cryptographic protocol, by contrast, describes how information moves throughout the cryptographic system. In our examples, the web browser and the remote web server communicate using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) cryptographic protocol.
More than a dozen cryptographic protocols have been developed for Internet security and commerce. These systems fall into two categories. The first category of cryptographic programs and protocols is used for encryption of offline messages—mostly email. The second category of cryptographic protocols is used for confidentiality, authentication, integrity, and nonrepudiation for online communications.
Offline Encryption Systems
Offline encryption systems are designed to take a message, encrypt it, and either store the ciphertext or transmit it to another user on the Internet. Some popular programs that are used for email encryption are shown in Table 4-1 and described in the sections that follow.
Table 4-1. Cryptographic protocols for offline communications
Protocol | What does it do? | Widely deployed? | Programs and systems | URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
PGP/OpenPGP | Encryption and digital signatures for email and electronic documents | Yes | PGP (Network Associates) Hushmail (Hush Communications) ... |
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