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Media Contact: Wendy Rickard rickard@rickardgroup.com 609-466-4343
CREN Announces Top-Level Certificate Authority Service July 22, 1998; Washington, DC... The Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN) is pleased to announce the deployment of a top-level Certificate Authority Service. The service will provide authentication services to CREN's member institutions and other organizations within the academic and research communities. The new Certificate Authority Service will enable CREN-a longtime provider of networking services to higher education and research-to issue digital certificates that validate certificates issued by other higher education and research institutions. The service will allow individuals at those institutions to share information and conduct online commerce in a cryptographically secure environment. In making the announcement, CREN president Ira Fuchs said, "I am delighted that CREN is taking a leadership role in offering this service to higher education. I am very happy that the board has taken the important step of approving this as a CREN service to begin addressing the challenges in higher education of accessing online resources and engaging in e-commerce." Network security expert Jeff Schiller, network manager at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and area director for security at the Internet Engineering Task Force, commented that "CREN's service provides both an important and a critical resource link for education and research institutions." Schiller also announced that MIT will be among the first institutions to use the service. "The service will facilitate interinstitutional relationships, as each institution will need only to go to CREN for authenticated certificates from other institutions," said Schiller. "CREN can serve as the grand rendezvous point and institutions will be relieved of the burden of establishing secure transactions with every other institution." Douglas Van Houweling, president of UCAID (University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development), the organization responsible for Internet2, praised CREN's plans to provide an important element of the infrastructure required to support advanced network applications and the end-to-end network performance they require. Digital certificates are an essential part of the current infrastructure for conducting secure transactions over the World Wide Web. CREN's Top-Level Certificate Authority Service will implement a high-level certificate authority that will verify the identities of individual certificate authorities at CREN's member institutions. Users at different institutions will be able to automatically verify the authenticity of the certificates they receive from each other's sites, simply by configuring their browser software for CREN's top-level certificate authority. This will greatly facilitate the sharing of information and the flow of commerce between CREN's member institutions by providing a secure environment in which those transactions can take place. Martin Haeberli, director of Education Marketing at Netscape Communications Corporation, sees the new service as an important step for Web-based communication and information exchange among higher education and research institutions. "CREN's Certificate Authority Service is an important step in enabling innovation, collaboration, and commerce among the institutions and individuals served by CREN's members and affiliates. We at Netscape are looking forward to the realization of the advantages of the Net Economy by CREN and its members, as well as to the new and effective modes of research and learning that are enabled by this essential infrastructure service." One content provider has already voiced support for the new service. Kevin Guthrie, president of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization that is building a searchable digital database with the complete backfiles of academic journals, said his organization applauds CREN's leadership in addressing this important problem. "We look forward to working with CREN," said Guthrie, "and to using this Certificate Authority Service to enhance the convenience and portability of access to the JSTOR database for our users." Cliff Lynch, executive director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), said he believes CREN's new top-level Certificate Authority Service represents important progress in enabling the research and education community to take advantage of networked information resources. "CNI welcomes CREN's efforts in the development of this piece of the infrastructure to support the access management requirements outlined in the White Paper on Authentication and Access Issues," said Lynch. "Access management is emerging as a critical issue for scholars, higher education institutions, libraries, publishers, and distance learners as we move to large-scale networked information delivery." CNI's white paper is at https://www.cni.org. As part of the roll-out of CREN's Top-Level Certificate Authority Service, the organization will be developing seminars and materials. For more information, please visit https://www.cren.net, or send e-mail to info@cren.net. |
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