Subject: Protocol Action: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Time Stamp Protocols (TSP) to Proposed Standard

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 15:13:00 -0400

The IESG has approved the Internet-Draft 'Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Time Stamp Protocols (TSP)'
<draft-ietf-pkix-time-stamp-15.txt> as a Proposed Standard.  This
document is the product of the Public-Key Infrastructure (X.509)
Working Group.  The IESG contact persons are Jeffrey Schiller and
Marcus Leech.

Technical Summary
 
This document describes a mechanism that can be used to digitally sign a
time stamp over an object (document etc.). It defines the notion of a
Time Stamping Authority (TSA), which is a trusted third party which
maintains a trusted clock. To use a TSA a client submits a hash of the
object to be signed (so the object contents are not disclosed) to the
TSA. The TSA returns a digitally signed message which contains the hash
and the trusted timestamp.

Such a service permits an entity to prove that they had possession of
a particular object or document prior to a particular time, provided
the TSA is trusted by all concerned.

Working Group Summary

The working group came to consensus on this document.

Protocol Quality

These documents were reviewed by Jeffrey I. Schiller for the IESG.