Summary

In conclusion the results of the integration of the Plasma security platform into the World Wide Web are summed up -- these results are made possible by the implementation of the idea of high level security within Plasma.

The just presented architecture allows a mutual authentication of web clients and servers which may also be achieved by means of other security platforms; after a successful authentication the server knows which client user wants to obtain data from him and may use this identification by means of appropriate CGI programs to grant or deny access (access control to the requested documents).

 

Figure: Interaction opportunities for the user in the web demo

Requests and responses may now be secured -- by locating the security platform close to the application the interactions of the user may be considered, i.e. the server can offer its documents in such a way as to allow the client to determine whether the document is to be sent confidentially, non-reputiably or with integrity checks. Furthermore the server may predetermine which documents need to be protected using specific security services; the web page in Figure exemplifies the opportunities for interaction with the user; the second image from the top may be treated confidentially and be transmitted non-reputiably; interaction with the user is possible since the generic security services within the platform have been realized as independent modules - these merely have to be activated by a mouse click via the interface of Plasma.

Finally, and this is the most significant feature facilitated by using Plasma, the different media and different structures of the HTML documents may be differentiated cryptographically. Using Plasma it is possible to ensure that forms, which may be containing a contract, will always be signed - both by the server to make sure that the client knows he is transferring his credit card number to an authorized server as well as by the client side to make sure that the client user has actually signed the ``contract'' in that particular form; using Plasma it is possible that for example textual data is always integrity protected and images are protected against loss of confidentiality during transmission.

Finally it ensures that an unauthorized disruption of a session by a client or server can be detected.