Requirements for the Deployment of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) in the USMC Tactical Environment
Abstract
Marine forces are expeditionary in nature yet require the full range of Public Key infrastructure (PKI) services at deployed sites with limited bandwidth and access to their respective Registration Authority (RA). The development of a PKI solution for the tactical arena is a fluid and complex challenge that needs to be answered in order to ensure the best support of tactically deployed forces. Deployed Marine forces will need the capability to issue and re-issue certificates, perform certificate revocation, and perform key recovery within the command element of the deployed unit. Since the current United States Marine Corps (USMO) PKI was not designed with the tactical environment in mind, the full extent of PKI deficiencies for field operation is unknown. This thesis begins by describing public key cryptography, the implementation and objectives of a USMC PKI, and the components necessary to operate a PKI. Next, tactical issues that have been identified as areas of concern along with their proposed solutions are presented. Supporting material describes design issues, such as scalability and interoperability, and technical challenges, such as certificate revocation lists (CRL), key escrow and management of tokens.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA393226
Entities
People
- Alan R. Stocks
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School