Identity-based public key cryptography

[Peter Tomlinson]

I hardly think that this ID-PKC has appeared all of a sudden. As some have
pointed out, the concepts are not new. And CESG spoke on this topic at a
conference about 6 months ago, as a result of which Peter Hawkes (BTG) and I
tracked down the CESG presentation material. But I'm not knowledgeable
enough to comment on the quality.

Incidentally, any news of Peter? He was due back at work about a month ago,
according to a lady at BTG, but I have heard nothing more.

Merry Xmas,

Peter T
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Williams" <j.g.williams@surrey.ac.uk>
To: "Ukcrypto (E-mail)" <ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 12:35 AM
Subject: Identity-based public key cryptography


> The powers that be continue to agonise over the use of cryptographic
> services for the NHS.  Setting up the necessary PKI seems to be
particularly
> challenging.
>
> Then all of a sudden we are being told about ID-PKC where no complicated
PKI
> is needed.  Public keys can be computed and we get our private keys from a
> CA.  The CA can be split into pieces so that only someone with all of the
> pieces gets to have the working private key.  How secure is this system
and
> is it in use anywhere?  It seems too good to be true and I feel uneasy
about
> where I am being told to go to view it from:
>
> http://www.cesg.gov.uk/technology/id-pkc/index.htm
>
>
> Does this have any place?
>
>
> John Williams
>
> Dr John Williams
>
>
>
>