article

Trustworthy 100-year digital objects: Evidence after every witness is dead

Author:

Henry M. GladneyAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), Volume 22, Issue 3

Pages 406 - 436

https://doi.org/10.1145/1010614.1010617

Published: 01 July 2004 Publication History

Abstract

In ancient times, wax seals impressed with signet rings were affixed to documents as evidence of their authenticity. A digital counterpart is a message authentication code fixed firmly to each important document. If a digital object is sealed together with its own audit trail, each user can examine this evidence to decide whether to trust the content---no matter how distant this user is in time, space, and social affiliation from the document's source.We propose an architecture and design that accomplish this: encapsulation of digital object content with metadata describing its origins, cryptographic sealing, webs of trust for public keys rooted in a forest of respected institutions, and a certain way of managing information identifiers. These means will satisfy emerging needs in civilian and military record management, including medical patient records, regulatory records for aircraft and pharmaceuticals, business records for financial audit, legislative and legal briefs, and scholarly works.This is true for any kind of digital object, independent of its purposes and of most data type and representation details, and provides every kind of user---information authors and editors, librarians and collection managers, and information consumers---with autonomy for implied tasks. Our prototype will conform to applicable standards, will be interoperable over most computing bases, and will be compatible with existing digital library software.The proposed architecture integrates software that is mostly available and widely accepted.

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https://doi.org/10.1002/aris.2011.1440450113
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cover image ACM Transactions on Information Systems

ACM Transactions on Information Systems Volume 22, Issue 3

July 2004

145 pages

ISSN:1046-8188

EISSN:1558-2868

DOI:10.1145/1010614

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Copyright © 2004 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 July 2004

Published in TOIS Volume 22, Issue 3

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Cited By

Burda DTeuteberg F(2013)Investigating the Needs, Capabilities and Decision Making Mechanisms in Digital PreservationInformation Resources Management Journal10.4018/irmj.201307010226:3(17-39)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.4018/irmj.2013070102
Kowalczyk SShankar K(2013)Data sharing in the sciencesAnnual Review of Information Science and Technology10.1002/aris.2011.144045011345:1(247-294)Online publication date: 2-Jan-2013
https://doi.org/10.1002/aris.2011.1440450113
Kowalczyk SShankar K(2011)Data sharing in the sciencesAnnual Review of Information Science and Technology10.5555/2766865.276687845:1(247-294)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2766865.2766878
Park SZo HCiganek ALim G(2011)Examining success factors in the adoption of digital object identifier systemsElectronic Commerce Research and Applications10.5555/2069777.207013810:6(626-636)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2069777.2070138
Borglund EAnderson K(2011)L.O.S.T RecordsProceedings of the 2011 conference on Databases and Information Systems VI: Selected Papers from the Ninth International Baltic Conference, DB&IS 201010.5555/1940590.1940616(271-282)Online publication date: 13-Aug-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1940590.1940616
Ma JAbie HSkramstad TNygard M(2011)A Framework for the Assessment of the Trustworthiness of Digital Records over TimeProceedings of the 2011IEEE 10th International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications10.1109/TrustCom.2011.96(738-744)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2011
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Park SZo HCiganek ALim G(2011)Examining success factors in the adoption of digital object identifier systemsElectronic Commerce Research and Applications10.1016/j.elerap.2011.05.00410:6(626-636)Online publication date: Nov-2011
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2011.05.004
Regli WKopena JGrauer M(2011)On the long-term retention of geometry-centric digital engineering artifactsComputer-Aided Design10.1016/j.cad.2010.11.01243:7(820-837)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2011
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Ma JAbie HSkramstad TNygård M(2011)Assessment of the Trustworthiness of Digital RecordsTrust Management V10.1007/978-3-642-22200-9_24(300-311)Online publication date: 2011
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Regli WGrauer MKopena JBronsvoort WGonsor DRegli WGrandine TVandenbrande JGravesen JKeyser J(2009)A framework for preservable geometry-centric artifacts2009 SIAM/ACM Joint Conference on Geometric and Physical Modeling10.1145/1629255.1629265(67-78)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2009
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