Integration of a public key infrastructure in a virtual university

Users in a virtual university normally gain access to the virtual campus and its resources using a valid username and password. Each resource may have a different passphrase that the user has to remember. Information transferred inside the virtual campus is sent in clear. Usually the virtual university does not provide a way of sending private data safely over the network. It is neither possible to determine the authorship of documents nor when they were written. The model that we propose for solving these problems is based in the use of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and digital certificates. These certificates are used for authenticating to the virtual campus using a single sign-on solution, for encrypting and/or signing data and for timestamping documents. This paper shows the different components of a PKI inside a virtual university and explains the use of the certificates within it.