An XML digital signature for Internet e-business applications

At present, many companies doing business-to-business (B2B) e-business on the Internet have suffered difficulties in extending their e-market and in participating in other markets, since it is impossible for their own e-business systems to interoperate with other e-business systems in other e-markets. To resolve the non-interoperability of the e-business applications, e-commerce common framework specifications, such as eCo and ebXML, have been made by e-commerce software vendors and user companies. These specifications have adopted the XML technology to exchange business documents between e-business applications. So, an XML digital signature for XML-based e-business systems is necessary. In this paper, we describe a method to design and implement an XML digital signature that provides integrity of the business documents, authentication of trading partners, and non-repudiation services, which are necessary for e-business. Our XML digital signature has been implemented according to the XML Signature Syntax and Processing specification of the IETF/W3C XML Signature Working Group.