Introduction of PKI Technology and Xnet CA System
- Infrastructure for Extranet System -

Ryu Inada	Solution Development Center, ISC
Masato Kurosaki	Solution Development Center, ISC
Makoto Udagawa	Solution Development Center, ISC

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the trends, feasibility issues, law-related issues and technical development for PKI technology at Fuji Xerox. PKI technology stands for Public Key Infrastructure and as such can be considered in two parts, public key cryptographic technology and the infrastructure on which it runs. PKI is quickly becoming an indispensable part of the Internet as a means of insuring safe data transmission and personal identification. Many Web servers and Web browsers now support PKI capabilities. In recent years, laws for supporting PKI have been passed and it is becoming the basic enabling technology for the concept of an electronic government.

With the goals of improving the safety of B2B information sharing systems, Xnet utilizes the public key certificates commonly used in EC applications such as Web banking and applies them to a document environment making possible the limitation of document publication, digital signatures and encrypted mail. The system consists of infrastructure software and application services. A certificate authority or a CA, needed to create a PKI, is provided as part of the infrastructure software. This CA is characterized by its ability to not only create site certificates to certify Web sites and personal certificates for personal identification, but also by its ability to create different types of (non-conventional) certificates according to need, such as personal certificates for clients and certificates for business programs.

Customization of PKI vendor products is generally impossible or extremely costly in terms of effort. However by using our own PKI technology, we have realized a B2B system which is not constrained by PKI vendor security policies.

The Xnet system has already been put to use for information sharing between our group companies and our customers.

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