The IESG has approved the Internet-Draft 'Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Time Stamp Protocols (TSP)' <draft-ietf-pkix-time-stamp-15.txt> as a Proposed Standard. This document is the product of the Public-Key Infrastructure (X.509) Working Group. The IESG contact persons are Jeffrey Schiller and Marcus Leech. Technical Summary This document describes a mechanism that can be used to digitally sign a time stamp over an object (document etc.). It defines the notion of a Time Stamping Authority (TSA), which is a trusted third party which maintains a trusted clock. To use a TSA a client submits a hash of the object to be signed (so the object contents are not disclosed) to the TSA. The TSA returns a digitally signed message which contains the hash and the trusted timestamp. Such a service permits an entity to prove that they had possession of a particular object or document prior to a particular time, provided the TSA is trusted by all concerned. Working Group Summary The working group came to consensus on this document. Protocol Quality These documents were reviewed by Jeffrey I. Schiller for the IESG.
