RNP > RNP News > 2007 News

RNP creates the first key server of Latin America connected to the world network

PGP keys expand security in the Internet

From today (February, 14th) on, the population will have access to the first PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) key server in Latin America with connection to the world network of this kind of server. The server was implemented by the Security Incident Response Team (Cais) of the Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP).

A key server consists of a special software, which has an interface via web, capable of registering, search and exclude public keys of users anywhere in the world. These servers make up a network, so that if any one user publishes a key in a server in Spain, for example, this update will arrive at all servers participating in the network.

PGP: messages with more security

The PGP software warrants the integrity and the confidentiality of secretive messages, when one wishes to send a ciphered e-mail (in code), so that only the addressee has access to its content. The software also guarantees the authenticity of the message, through digital signature, for non-ciphered messages. In this case, although the message is public, the sender permits whoever receives it to check if he was truly the one who sent it. With this signature, it is impossible for anyone to change it without the knowledge of the PGP.

In the server of PGP keys of the Cais/RNP, one can investigate any public key from the world network of servers. The address, as of the RNP site, is http://www.rnp.br/keyserver.

Authentic identity is guaranteed by cryptography

Cryptography is the art of writing messages in a ciphered or coded way. Among its objectives, it is aimed at authenticating the identity of the users, authenticate and protect the secrecy of personal communications and of commercial and banking transactions and protect the integrity of fund electronic transfers.

Present cryptography methods are based on the use of one or more keys. The key contains a sequence of characters, which may contain letters, digits and symbols, and which is converted into a number, used by the cryptography methods to code and decode messages.

[RNP, 02.14.2007]