Provision of long-term archiving service for digitally signed documents using an archive interaction protocol

This paper presents the basic design considerations and implementation of a trusted long-term preservation service for electronic records based on a protocol for archival service interaction. The main focus of the research is on e-government and e-business enabled applications and the preservation of electronic heritage in complex and open system environments including PKI enabled infrastructures for digitally signing documents. The operational solution must ensure an easy to use and reliable digital objects archiving service. The archival service is being developed as an open, scalable, modular and extensible service using Internet technologies. It uses international standards under development by the IETF and ETSI in the field of digital signatures and trusted long term archiving services and has provided feedback to the standardization activities.