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Encryption

We recognise that the only way for CCCP to be really secure is to use encryption of all CCC packets, and CCCP will support an encryption scheme. The key distribution problem is considered to be outside the scope of CCCP itself, and CCCP will require the application to pass the key to it. After this, all CCCP messages from this library will be encrypted, and non-encrypted messages will be ignored.

CCCP will allow an encryption key per conference id, and a key for messages not associated with any conference. Which encryption key to use for outgoing messages is chosen by the CCC library according to the conference id. Once the application has passed the set of keys to the CCC library, it no longer has to concern itself with encryption.

Encryption and Host Access can be used simultaneously.



Jon CROWCROFT
1998-12-03