Long-term trusted preservation service using service interaction protocol and evidence records

The e-business and e-government processes demand to prove the existence of data at a specific point of time and to demonstrate the integrity of the data since that time during long-term periods is becoming of utmost importance. An approach and a solution to the problem of long-term preservation of electronic data are presented in this paper. The basic system design and the architecture of a long-term electronic archive service is introducing a protocol and an Evidence Record Syntax that is being standardized within the IETF LTANS WG. The proposed system environment is based on PKI-enabled infrastructures for creation of trust, the anchor and long-term maintenance for data integrity proofs. The proposed solution contains a class of services that meet the requirements for legally binding documentation. The underline architecture of the service is designed in order to incorporate all critical technology elements required for trustworthy and reliable digital objects archiving services.