Flexible authentication of XML documents

XML is increasingly becoming the format of choice for information exchange on the Internet. As this trend grows, one can expect that documents (or collections thereof) may get quite large, and clients may wish to query for specific segments of these documents. In critical areas such as healthcare, law and finance, integrity is essential. In such applications, clients must be assured that they are getting complete and correct answers to their queries. Existing methods for signing XML documents cannot be used to establish that an answer to a query is complete. A simple approach has a server processing queries and certifying answers by digitally signing them with an on-line private key; however, the server, and its on-line private key, would be vulnerable to external hacking and insider attacks. We propose a new approach to signing XML documents which allows untrusted servers to answer certain types of path queries and selection queries over XML documents without the need for trusted o...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2001
• Where: CCS
• Authors: Premkumar T. Devanbu, Michael Gertz, April Kwong, Charles U. Martel, Glen Nuckolls, Stuart G. Stubblebine
• Keywords: CCS 2001, On-line Private Key, Security Privacy, Server Processing Queries, XML Documents