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Subject: Application SC report - August 2005
It appears that the more research I do into the possibility of digitally signing and encrypting transactions from the browser directly, the more complex the picture becomes - some technically, but more so from the number of groups addressing issues around this problem, but not this problem itself. I recently became aware of an ad-hoc working group called the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) (http://www.whatwg.org/) that is attempting to define standards around Web Forms 2.0 - a supposedly, better way to write web applications. It is being promoted by the Mozilla Foundation and Opera, and they've submitted (or are in the process of submitting) their initial draft to the W3C. I am attempting to determine the details of their specification and to see if they're addressed forms signing/encryption within their draft, thus adding one more detour before the real work can be done. It does seem that PKI is gaining momentum - although in small steps: i) OpenOffice has implemented XMLSignature-based digital signatures in their free 1.9x implementation of office suites. It actually works; ii) Sun has released a JSR-105 (XMLSignature)-compliant reference implementation of the open-source Java library so that applications can use a standard API to use digital signatures (haven't tested it yet); iii) The Java library compliant to XMLEncryption standards (JSR-106) public-review is imminent, according to the JSR-106 chairman; they're anticipating standardization sometime this year, perhaps; While enabling technologies are slowly coming to market, the ability for corporate IT developers to use this technology easily (as well as the technical documentation to make sense of it all) remains out of reach. We need to address this. Arshad Noor OASIS PKITC Member Chairperson, Applications Guidelines SC
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