Higher Ed Certificate Authority by CREN: Update CSG February 2, 2000

1/14/00www.cren.net2 Focus of the Certificate Authority Service from CREN  Initial focus is on serving the need for high volume, low risk uses of digital certificates  Primary initial use for l Between institutions l Between institutions and content providers  Other digital certificates may be used for other purposes

1/14/00www.cren.net3 CA Subscriber Application Process (Short version)  2 Page Application Form completed by CREN member rep  Signed by executive officer of institution  Once registration is completed, the technical contact l Issues request for certificate l Accepts the certificate on behalf of institution  Certificate with institution’s public key is posted to CREN repository

1/14/00www.cren.net4 CREN/MIT Relationship  CREN office serves function of registration authority and certificate authority  Actual generation of the CREN institutional certificates is at MIT, monitored by CREN Board of Trustee

1/14/00www.cren.net5 CREN CA/MIT  CREN office will confirm institutional CA and contacts  MIT will l Receive the request for the certificate directly from technical contact at institution, l Generate the institutional certificate, l Send the institutional certificate back to technical contact and to CREN office

1/14/00www.cren.net6 Piloting Update  Pilot Round One: l MIT, Georgia Tech, and Princeton l Certificates issued and accepted l PGP used for secure communication during registration and certificate request process l Preparing campus scenarios of these implementations l Each step of the application process is now in a Step by Step document

1/14/00www.cren.net7 Piloting Lessons  Pilot Round One: l Each step of the application process is now in a Step by Step document, available on the web l Next: Use of the Institutional certificate in generating the campus certificates

1/14/00www.cren.net8 Piloting of the CREN CA  Pilot Round Two: l U of Minnesota/Twin Cities l Penn State l U of Tennessee/Memphis  Phase Two l Testing with content provider, JSTOR l Continuing links with Digital Library Project  Pilot Round Three is in March

1/14/00www.cren.net9 Uses of Digital Certificates on Campuses  Authenticate — verify who the person is l Might only be necessary to know that a person is a member of a specific community  Authorize— specify level of access for person to do work, tasks or approve actions  Authenticate/Authorize person for l Instructional uses l Admin purposes l Student life purposes

1/14/00www.cren.net10 Uses of Digital Certificates on Campuses  Instructional Uses l Testing l Access to content resources from “wherever the person is” off campus/home l Entrance into Internet online events  Admin purposes l Admitting, paying, programming, grading, giving  Student life purposes l Health Care, student elections, football tickets

1/14/00www.cren.net11 How Many Digital Certificates?  More than five and less than 20? More than one and less than 10?  Similar to passwords, credit cards  Used in combination with something else..  Passwords now stored locally, less vulnerable to attack

1/14/00www.cren.net12 Next Steps: Feb - June 00  Pilot School Meeting - March 2000  Preparing draft document on campus practices  Capturing and describing pilot campus scenarios  Working with content providers  Listening hard to ensure appropriate evolution and focus

1/14/00www.cren.net13 Issue Awareness in Campus CAs and PKI  CREN TechTalks- Spring 2000 l Feb 17: Ken Klingenstein and Keith Hazelton/ Middleware project l April 13: Jeff Schiller on Campus applications and Practices with Digital Certificates  Focused Seminars: Possibly April, June  Archived TechTalks at  CA section of the cren.net web site

1/14/00www.cren.net14 Continuing Issues  Monitor structure of PKI infrastructure for higher education needs  How best can CA service serve higher education needs? What is the trust model that will work?  How best can CREN support campus’ move to Campus CAs?  How do we interact with government projects and initiatives?  What content providers are ready?

1/14/00www.cren.net15 Working with lots of folks on this one! Feedback and input essential!