The Solar Trust Model: authentication without limitation

The PEM and PGP/X.509 authentication models and the Biba Integrity Model have limitations inherent in their design that diminish their practicality in real world applications. The ICE-TEL trust model addresses some of these difficulties, and introduces a few new limitations. The Common Security Services Manager´s Trust Policy Interface Specification provides the guidelines with which new trust policies may be encoded, but does not implement an actual policy. This paper describes a new model that permits both the identity of the sender of a message, and the trustworthiness of the sender of the message to be determined. The model works regardless of whether or not the message was signed by a certificate authority with which the recipient has a relationship. The model can be implemented without changing the format of certificates that are currently in use, and could be used as a module in a broader security framework, such as the Common Security Services Manager