RFC 2792 (rfc2792) - Page 1 of 7

DSA and RSA Key and Signature Encoding for the KeyNote Trust Management System

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Network Working Group                                           M. Blaze
Request for Comments: 2792                                  J. Ioannidis
Category: Informational                             AT&T Labs - Research
                                                            A. Keromytis
                                                      U. of Pennsylvania
                                                              March 2000


             DSA and RSA Key and Signature Encoding for the
                    KeyNote Trust Management System

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This memo describes RSA and DSA key and signature encoding, and
   binary key encoding for version 2 of the KeyNote trust-management
   system.

1.  Introduction

   KeyNote is a simple and flexible trust-management system designed to
   work well for a variety of large- and small-scale Internet-based
   applications.  It provides a single, unified language for both local
   policies and credentials.  KeyNote policies and credentials, called
   `assertions', contain predicates that describe the trusted actions
   permitted by the holders of specific public keys.  KeyNote assertions
   are essentially small, highly-structured programs.  A signed
   assertion, which can be sent over an untrusted network, is also
   called a `credential assertion'.  Credential assertions, which also
   serve the role of certificates, have the same syntax as policy
   assertions but are also signed by the principal delegating the trust.
   For more details on KeyNote, see [BFIK99].  This document assumes
   reader familiarity with the KeyNote system.

   Cryptographic keys may be used in KeyNote to identify principals.  To
   facilitate interoperation between different implementations and to
   allow for maximal flexibility, keys must be converted to a normalized
   canonical form (depended on the public key algorithm used) for the
   purposes of any internal comparisons between keys.  For example, an



Blaze, et al.                Informational
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