The DEDICA project: The solution to the interoperability problems between the X.509 and EDIFACT public key infrastructures

Abstract

This paper introduces the barriers of interoperability that exist between the X.509 and EDIFACT Public Key Infrastructures (PKI), and proposes a solution to remove them. The solution goes through the DEDICA1 (Directory based EDI Certificate Access and management) Project. The main objective of this project is to define and to provide the means to make these two infrastructures inter-operable without increasing the amount of information to be managed by them. The proposed solution is a gateway tool interconnecting both PKIs. The main goal of this gateway is to act as a TTP that “translates” certificates issued by one PKI to the other's format, and then signs the translation to make it a new certificate. The gateway will, in fact, act as a proxy Certification Authority (CA) of the CAs of the other PKI, and will take the responsibility of the certified data authenticity, on the behalf of the original CA.