RSA Laboratories' Public-Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS) address some
of the issues you mention about access to private keys. PKCS #5 gives
algorithms for encrypting private keys under a password; see also PKCS
#8 on private-key syntax. (Send email to <pkcs(_at_)rsa(_dot_)com> for
information
on how to obtain a copy.) PKCS doesn't say anything about roles and
employer access to keys, though.
-- Burt Kaliski
RSA Laboratories
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In the current PEM implementations (apart from a demo one) I assume that
what the user gives as the private key to the system is actually a key
to the private key rather than the key itself. Do current implementations
stop the UA key from being used to extract the 'real' key?
If so, a role private key used by an employer could remain secret and
the property of the employer even when an employee with an key to the
role key leaves the company. This would need to have a key management
process that the UA interacts with but would not allow the user to copy
the key database..
This would lead to private keys belonging to the employee being used by
the UA to sign documents and role keys being used by the key-management
process to sign documents for the role.
Are there documents covering these sort of processes?
Pete.