Securing Web access with DCE

Abstract

Internet tools, especially Web browsers and servers, are being widely used for information access. However, these tools have some limitations in terms of the security available for those information accesses and of the robustness and availability of the infrastructure used to provide that security. This paper describes work done to utilize the security services and infrastructure of the Open Software Foundation (OSF) Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) to secure Web accesses. This work was done as part of an Advanced Technology Offering (ATO) by the OSF Research Institute jointly with Gradient Technologies Inc. and other ATO sponsors. A practical implementation has been completed. These combined technologies allow users to securely access both Web documents and application servers from a variety of desktop systems using standard, off-the-shelf Web browsers.