Workshops: Proposal for Planning and Implementing a Higher Education Bridge Certification Authority (HEBCA)

研究和教育界迫切需要在高等教育机构和联邦机构之间建立可信的电子通信。 这个问题的唯一通用解决方案是基于公钥基础设施（PKI），这是一种使用数字证书和签名为网络通信带来应用程序所需的信任和安全级别的系统。 在机构之间实施PKI的一个主要障碍是由不同供应商实施或由不同供应商认证或由不同机构认证的技术版本可能无法互操作，从而有效地限制了它们对单个机构的使用。政策和技术框架，将一个机构或机构的信任程度转化为另一个机构或机构的信任程度。 2001-2002年，教育促进发展协会实施了高等教育桥梁认证机构（HEBCA）的测试版本，将这一方法扩展到高等教育界。 虽然测试版证明了该方法的技术可行性，但由于缺乏相应的法律的、政策和财务框架，因此无法用于生产。假设设计工作取得成功，EDUCAUSE打算将研讨会的结果作为实施生产HEBCA的路线图，与FBCA进行交叉认证，并邀请为高等教育服务的认证机构加入HEBCA。 这将提供一个统一的基础，大学可以在此基础上与各种联邦机构开展广泛的可信电子通信，以更好地支持研究和教育。 该提案将制定和举办一系列专家研讨会，以规划和实施建立和创建HEBCA所需的步骤，并将其投入生产。

The research and education community faces a pressing need for trusted electronic communications between institutions of higher education and the federal agencies. The only general solutions to this problem are based on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), a system that uses digital certificates and signatures to bring to network communications the levels of trust and security required by the applications. A major barrier to the implementation of PKI among institutions is the fact that versions of the technology implemented by different vendors or certified by different vendors or certified by different authorities may not interoperate, effectively limiting their use to single institutions.A widely-accepted solution to this problem has been designed and implemented in the Federal Bridge Certification Authority (FBCA), which provides the legal, policy and technical framework to translate levels of trust from one institution or agency to another. In 2001-2002, EDUCAUSE implemented a test version of the Higher Education Bridge Certification Authority (HEBCA), which extends this approach to the Higher Education Community. While the test version demonstrated the technical feasibility of the approach, it cannot be used for production because it lacks the corresponding legal, policy and financial framework.Assuming the success of the design efforts, EDUCAUSE intends to use the results of the workshops as a roadmap to implement a production HEBCA, cross certify it with the FBCA, and invite Certificate Authorities that serve higher education to join the HEBCA. This will provide a uniform foundation on which universities can initiate a wide range of trusted electronic communications with various federal agencies to better support research and education. The proposal will develop and conduct a series of expert workshops to plan and implement the steps required to establish and create the HEBCA, and to move it into production.