Digital Signature Services & OASIS – What Is It?

The “Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards”, well recognized as OASIS, was created in 1993.  The purpose of this organization was management of growth and acceptance / implementation of principles (standards) for trade of information for internet/ online business.  

Authorization of the Digital Signature Services (DSS) requirement, version 1.0 has recently been done by OASIS. 

It was in 2002, that DSS was initially proposed.  It was the same time when the technical team of the organization was shaped for building up XML-based protocols in Web services dealings (transactions/ business) for digital signatures and cryptographic time-stamping.  Digital signing processes were the nucleus of this protocol.  In this process, documents are mailed/ sent to a server by the user/ client. Subsequently an electronic mark (signature) is received on the documents or all documents and signature is sent to the server. Thus user gets confirmation on the authentication of the documents with respect to the signature. Base64-encoded binary is signature’s main element, which could be any of the - CMS (Cryptographic Message Syntax) or PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) key.

To construct easier web-based transactions, it’s very much essential that the digital signatures techniques are standardized, this in turn acts as a most important advantage too. This is evident with the usage of e-commerce websites, where each project doesn’t require a customized coding to handle the dealings or transactions online. 

Separate servers could be utilized by businesses/ companies for signature services, by mutually approved standards. Also, the same could be leased to a third party. As per OASIS, the Universal Postage Union (an agency of United Nations) has pooled resources in DSS standard development. The agency is also integrating the DSS system into its Electronic Post Mark (EPM) system. EPM system is created to help the global trade or commerce by standardization of documents and exchange of information.