Health Level Seven                                       Gunther Schadow
EDIINT Working Group                                         Mark Tucker
draft-ietf-ediint-hl7-00.txt                       Regenstrief Institute
Expires: in six months                                        Wes Rishel
                                                   Wes Rishel Consulting
                                                           July 21, 1998




              Secure HL7 Transactions using Internet Mail

                       draft-ietf-ediint-hl7-00.txt


Status of this Memo

This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working
documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and
its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working
documents as Internet-Drafts.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material
or to cite them other than as ``work in progress.''

   To view the entire list of current Internet-Drafts, please check the
``1id-abstracts.txt'' listing contained in the Internet-Drafts Shadow
Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), ftp.nordu.net (Northern Europe),
ftp.nis.garr.it (Southern Europe), munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim),
ftp.ietf.org (US East Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast).

Copyright Notice

Copyright (C) 1998, Health Level-7, Inc. All rights reserved.

Abstract

This memo describes the applicability of the Internet standardization
efforts on secure electronic data interchange (EDI) transactions for
Health Level-7 (HL7), an EDI standard for healthcare used worldwide.
This memo heavily relies on the work in progress by the IETF EDIINT
working group. It is in most parts a restatement of the EDIINTs
requirements document and application statement 1 (AS#1) tailored to the
needs of the HL7 audience. We tried to make this document as self
consistent as possible. The goal is to give to the reader who is not a



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security or Internet standards expert enough foundational and detail
information to enable him to build communication software that complies
to the Internet standards.

   Even though we rely on and promote the respective Internet standards
and drafts, we did not withstand from commenting on and criticising this
work where we see upcoming problems in use with HL7 or other EDI
protocols that have not been in the initial focus of the EDIINT working
group. We make suggestions to add parameters to the specification of the
MIME type for EDI messages [RFC 1767] in order to enhance functionality.
We give use cases for a larger subset of disposition types and modifiers
of message disposition notifications.

   One key issue where this memo goes beyond the current EDIINT drafts
is the concept of non-repudiation of commitment to an EDI transaction.
Secure EDI transactions should be regarded as ``distributed contracts,''
i.e. not only the sending and receiving of single messages should be
non-refutable but also the connection between messages interchanges. In
anticipation of this requirement HL7 usually requires a response message
to be sent to acknowledge every transaction. We therefore have the
requirement to securely couple an EDI response message to its request
message. Given the current shape of RFC 1767 this is generally possible
only if a response message is coupled with an MDN receipt and the
combination of both signed by the responder. This memo describes a
protocol to bundle MDN and response that uses the MIME multipart/related
content type [RFC 2112].

Contents


          Status of this Memo......................................... 1
          Copyright Notice............................................ 1
          Abstract.................................................... 1
          Contents.................................................... 2
          Figures..................................................... 4
          Tables...................................................... 4
1         Introduction................................................ 4
1.1       Scope....................................................... 6
1.2       Limitations................................................. 7
1.3       Status...................................................... 8
1.4       Acknowledgements............................................ 9
2         How it works................................................ 9
2.1       Relevant Standards.......................................... 9
2.2       E-MAIL......................................................13
2.3       MIME........................................................13
2.4       MIME Security Multiparts....................................15
2.5       Message Disposition Notifications...........................15




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2.6       MIME-EDI....................................................15
3         Security I: General Issues..................................18
3.1       Security Services...........................................18
3.1.1     Integrity...................................................18
3.1.2     Authenticity................................................18
3.1.3     Authorization...............................................19
3.1.4     Confidentiality.............................................19
3.1.5     Non-repudiation.............................................19
3.1.6     More About Security Services................................20
3.2       Mechanisms..................................................20
3.2.1     Cryptographic Algorithms....................................20
3.2.1.1   Message Integrity Check.....................................21
3.2.1.2   Symmetric Ciphers...........................................21
3.2.1.3   Asymmetric Ciphers..........................................23
3.2.2     Cryptographic Protocols.....................................24
3.2.2.1   Digital Envelope............................................25
3.2.2.2   Digital Signature...........................................26
3.2.2.3   Certificates................................................26
3.2.2.4   Non-Repudiation.............................................28
4         Security II: Implementation Issues..........................30
4.1       MIME Security in General....................................30
4.1.1     Authenticity: Multipart/Signed..............................31
4.1.2     Confidentiality: Multipart/Encrypted........................32
4.1.3     Non-repudiation of receipt: Multipart/Report................33
4.1.4     Non-Repudiation of Commitment: Multipart/Related............37
4.2       MIME-PGP....................................................40
4.2.1     Overview of PGP-Services....................................40
4.2.2     Digital Signature...........................................41
4.2.3     Digital Envelope............................................42
4.2.4     Certificates................................................43
4.3       S/MIME......................................................43
4.3.1     Overview of PKCS-Services...................................43
4.3.2     Digital Signature...........................................44
4.3.3     Digital Envelope............................................45
4.3.4     Certificates................................................46
5         A Detailed Example..........................................46
6         Architectural and Operational Considerations................57
6.1       Process Structure of the E-mail Handling Machine............57
6.2       Coexistence of E-mail and TCP/IP Based Communications.......60
6.3       Logging Messages and Receipts...............................62
6.4       Interface Negotiations for HL7 over E-mail..................64
6.4.1     Impact of the Medium........................................64
6.4.2     Negotiating Interface Agreements............................65
7         Endnotes....................................................65
8         Addresses of the Authors....................................66
9         Full Copyright Statement....................................67





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Figures


Figure 1: Use of intermediary and terminal boundaries in multiparts.  14
Figure 2: The key in symmetric ciphers is a shared secret.            21
Figure 3: Asymmetric encryption uses two complementary keys.          23
Figure 4: Hybrid symmetric and asymmetric key encryption. The         25
          asymmetric cipher is used only to encrypt the data
          encryption key (DEK) while the bulk data of the message is
          encrypted with one of the stronger and more efficient
          symmetric ciphers.
Figure 5: A digital signature is an encrypted message integrity       26
          check (MIC). The Data remains readable in transit, but
          tampering it will invalidate the signature.
Figure 6: The normal HL7 transaction consists of two application      37
          layer HL7 messages: request and response. The MDN receipt
          for the request message can be bundled with the
          application layer HL7 response. The second MDN receipt is
          normally not needed.
Figure 7: Directing incoming e-mail to a program that processes HL7   58
          messages.
Figure 8: HL7 using e-mail can pass a firewall through a gatekeeping  59
          router. The gatekeeper needs not unwrap the message from
          its protecting envelope.
Figure 9: The e-mail handler relays messages to existing HL7          60
          applications. Surrogate processes provide separate TCP
          services for each remote destination. The internal
          communication that may or may not use a router hub can
          treat the remote hosts as if they where local TCP servers.


Tables


Table 1:  Reference to relevant standards.............................10
Table 2:  Protocols for Multipart/Signed..............................31
Table 3:  Protocols for Multipart/Encrypted...........................32
Table 4:  Disposition types that are relevant to EDI..................35
Table 5:  Disposition modifiers that are relevant to EDI..............36
Table 6:  Journalized outgoing messages...............................63
Table 7:  Pending messages file.......................................63


1 Introduction

HL7 is a volunteer organization to develop EDI standards supporting the
data interchange needs of the healthcare domain, including patient
administration, billing, clinical ordering and result reporting,



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clinical trials and more. HL7 is accredited by the American National
Standards Institute but its use and participation in its development is
not limited to the United States. International affiliates and
participators, include Australia, Canada, Finnland, Germany, Japan,
Netherland and New Zealand.

    This document is a draft HL7 Recommendation that describes how to
send HL7 messages using public Internet mail. The HL7 Board of Directors
commissioned the document as a ``fast track'' effort in its August 1997
meeting.  This topic is becoming important to HL7 members because they
are finding their organizations increasingly dispersed and because they
are finding the need to communicate with HL7 among independent
organizations.  HL7 public health transactions, for example, are
inherently transorganizational.

   Using Internet e-mail to convey HL7 messages leverages an ubiquitous
and cost efficient channel for HL7 communications. However, it also
bears considerable risks:

o  The privacy of health care data is threatened by interception of
   messages on their route from senders to receivers,

o  The correctness and reliability of data is threatened by fraudulent
   messages,

o  The accountability and again reliability of transactions is
   threatened by allowing the communicating partners to repudiate that a
   particular message has been sent or received.

   Therefore, using the Internet requires measures to prevent these
threats. Technologies do exist, which are powerful enough to provide the
required security services at a high quality. In For the Record:
Protecting Electronic Health Information the Committee on Maintaining
Privacy and Security in Health Care Applications in the National
Information Infrastructure states that encryption can serve a number of
uses in health care settings, including those identified here.  It
further states that tools based on encryption are largely underdeployed
and much more aggressive demonstration of these tools and their
integration into real systems is needed.(1) 1.fM Finally, it enumerates
a series of security practices that are recommended for immediate
implementation.  One of these is Protection of external electronic
communications:

     Organizations should encrypt all patient-identifiable
     information before transmitting it over public networks, such
     as the Internet.  Organizations that do not meet these
     requirements should either refrain from transmitting
     information electronically outside the organization or should



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     do so only over secure dedicated lines.(1) 2.fM

   Considerable progress is being made in drafting Internet standards
for the deployment of cryptographic techniques. These standards
effectively prevent the above mentioned threats by assuring the
integrity, authenticity, confidentiality and non-refutability of
messages. This document describes how to use these techniques to
transmit HL7 messages over Internet mail.

   Another means of addressing these same needs is by using a private
network.  Indeed, the vast majority of HL7 implementations today occur
on private networks that are entirely maintained by a single
organization and have restricted access outside their boundaries.
However, establishing and maintaining a private network across
geographically dispersed entities and among independent organizations is
an expensive proposition.  Virtual private networks and value-added
networks also meet these needs, but the expense and the administrative
overhead in providing access is still substantial.

   This recommendation meets the security requirements at the level of
operational expense and geographic distribution associated with public
Internet mail.  For example, it could be economical to use these
recommendations for establishing communications from a physicians
practice system to city, county, or state health boards or among
regional and federal health authorities.  It could also be used for
communications between care providers and home health systems. This
approach may be the most economical alternative anywhere the need for
timeliness is consistent with the capabilities of Internet mail.
Frequently the economic benefit will be sufficiently large to permit
applications of HL7 that would otherwise not be practical.

1.1 Scope

This document contains five categorically different kinds of
information:

1. A description of the document, its intent, scope, and limitations
   (section 1)

2. Background information on Internet standards and the relevant
   technologies (sections 2 and 3)

3. Specific recommendations for how to apply various Internet standards
   and draft standards to transmit HL7 messages to meet the stated
   requirements (section 2 and 4)

4. Some general discussion of how systems and organizations may choose
   to implement these recommendations (section 6).



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5. An example that shows the different steps and work products of a
   complete secure HL7 transaction (section 5).

   It is important to note that only sections 2 and 4 prescribe specific
   formats or protocols that must be used for interoperability.

1.2 Limitations

This Recommendation is limited to exchanging authentic and private HL7
messages among organizations.  Although one technique that it employs is
called digital ``signature,'' the reader should not expect to find an
approach for authentically determining the individual person who signs
orders, reports, or other information that might be contained within an
HL7 message.

   The mechanisms stated in this document are based on cryptographic
technologies that use a pair of cryptographic keys, which allows them
not only to encrypt messages but also to securely identify the sender
and receiver of a message. These mechanisms are threatened by a number
of means including, but not limited to:

o  Failure of the communicating partners to exchange their mutual public
   keys in a trustworthy manner,

o  Electronic attacks on systems that store those keys,

o  Unscrupulous or careless current or former employees who deal with
   organizational keys,

o  Attacks on the information systems that produce or consume the actual
   messages or handle them at intermediate points before they are
   encrypted,

o  Unscrupulous current or former employees who get or alter the clear
   text messages.

   Furthermore, the techniques here do nothing to guarantee that a
required message is ever initially sent.  Organizations that are
obligated to send messages using these techniques must employ their own
means to ensure that their applications generate and send the initial
HL7 message of an exchange and that the appropriate reply is received in
the appropriate time frame.

   Considerable work is underway to enhance the distribution of
authentic keys.  This work includes the establishment of trusted
authorities who can dispense digital ``certificates''--combinations of a
name and a key that are signed by the authority.  These certificates
provide assurance that the public keys are associated with that entity



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they claim.  This document does not require a trusted authority for
dispensing certificates.  It is assumed that the communicating parties
will exchange certificates and other credentials in face-to-face
meetings, by fax, or using other means that they deem sufficiently
secure.

   As this work is based on Internet-drafts and is itself a draft,
implementers must assume that there will be changes in the published
formats and protocol before the document and the standards upon which it
relies are final.  This would not preclude implementations among
specific trading partners where they agreed to update their
implementations to the final versions.

1.3 Status

The document is a draft of an HL7 Recommendation with respect to its
applicability to HL7 versions in the 2.x series.  As with all HL7
Recommendations, it is not intended to become an HL7 standard, will not
be required for a vendor to claim conformance to HL7.  We do not plan to
present it to the American National Standards Institute for
certification as an ANSI standard.  The intended use of this document
parallels that of the Lower Layer Protocols specification that HL7
published as appendix B of HL7 version 2.1 and as part of the
implementation guides for versions 2.2 and 2.3.  It provides an approach
that organizations can agree to if they so choose.

   The contents of this draft have been used as the basis for a
prototype that will be demonstrated in January 1998, at the HL7 Working
Group Meeting in New Orleans.  Readers are invited to comment on the
document through the HL7 List Server.(1) 3.fM Work is underway to submit
essentially the same material to the Internet Engineering Task Force.
The commentary that follows, either through HL7 or though the IETF will
be the basis of modifications to this document before it is submitted
for ballot.

   Sites that are interested in using this approach for prototyping or
on a trial basis are invited to do so.  We hope that they will
collaborate with existing workers or report their work back through the
HL7 List Server.

   This work is currently described in terms of the transfer of HL7
messages using e-mail.  However, work is underway in the IETF to permit
the same techniques to be used to transfer EDI messages using the HTTP
protocol used by Web servers.  The same techniques and formats will be
applicable to that communications mode.






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1.4 Acknowledgements

Wes Rishel chaired the fast track group that prepared the document.
Gunther Schadow is the primary author with help from Mark Tucker.  We
gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Mary Kratz, Mark Shafarman,
Wayne Wilson, and Rik Drummond in helping to shape its contents and sort
through the relevant issues. Thanks to the numerous other people, who
supplied comments, suggestions and encuragement. Special acknowledgement
to Clem McDonald, whose prudence and support made this work possible at
all.

2 How it works

2.1 Relevant Standards

This recommendation describes the exchange of HL7 messages using
Internet e-mail.  Therefore, it is based on Internet standards and
depends on Internet policy and procedures.  Internet standards come in
documents called ``Requests For Comment'' (RFC).  RFC documents are
ASCII texts that are widely distributed on the Internet.  Most major
public FTP sites have a subdirectory named /pub/doc/rfc where all RFCs
can be retrieved by their number.  Each RFC has a unique number that is
issued sequentially.  Although all Internet Standards are available as
RFC documents, not all RFC documents are Internet standards.  There are
many other RFC documents of general interest describing history and
state of the art in networking technology.  For an overview of the
classes of RFC documents and status of Internet standards refer to the
latest RFC entitled INTERNET OFFICIAL PROTOCOL STANDARDS.(1) 4.fM

   Since this recommendation heavily depends on ongoing standardization
work, it is inevitable to refer to so-called ``Internet-Drafts.''
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task
Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  These documents are
valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or made
obsolete by other documents at any time.  The Internet-Drafts referred
to in this Recommendation will most likely be consolidated into Internet
standards.  However, it is expected that some details in this
recommendation may change in the future.  Where changes are foreseeable
already, we have mentioned it so that implementers can prepare for the
upcoming standards now.  In any case, it is advantageous for HL7 to make
an applicability statement about the use of Internet technology at that
early time.  This allows time to realize problems that are relevant to
HL7 and the opportunity to influence the Internet-standardization
process.

   This Recommendation describes a stack of lower layer protocols (LLP)
that can be used to transfer HL7 messages reliably and securely.  While
focusing on Internet e-mail, this recommendation will be applicable for



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other message exchange protocols with minimal changes.  This flexibility
is possible because of a modular approach, where modules of higher
levels depend on modules of lower levels.  If lower-level modules are
exchanged in order to cater to other transport protocols, the higher
level modules need not be touched.  From lowest to highest level the
modules are:

1. Internet in general

2. Internet e-mail

3. MIME (multipurpose Internet mail extensions)

4. Security

5. Message disposition notifications

6. MIME-based secure EDI

   The following table presents an overview of the documents that are
relevant to this recommendation.  The list is compiled to clearly show
which documents are essential and at the same time suggest valuable
reading for those who might be new to Internet terms and procedures in
general or a specific protocol in particular.  Each item has a relevance
indicator in the left-hand column.  There are three degrees of
relevance:

R  Required: An essential standard from the perspective of this
   recommendation.  Such a document is likely to depend on some other
   Internet standard that is not referred to in this recommendation.

O  Optional: An optional standard for which either there are or will be
   alternatives or which can optionally be used for a specific useful
   but non-essential purpose.

I  Informational: A document to provide further information, contrast,
   or background knowledge.


Table 1: Reference to relevant standards.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|1. Internet in general                                                |
+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|I | RFC 1462   | FYI on ``What is the Internet?''                     |
|I | RFC 1935   | What is the Internet, Anyway?                        |
|I | RFC 2200   | INTERNET OFFICIAL PROTOCOL STANDARDS                 |
+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+



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+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|I | RFC 2026   | The Internet Standards Process--Revision 3           |
|I | RFC 1983   | Internet Users' Glossary                             |
|I | RFC 2135   | Internet Society By-Laws                             |
+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|2. Internet e-mail                                                    |
+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|R | RFC 822    | Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text        |
|  |            | messages.                                            |
|I | RFC 821    | Simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP)                 |
|I | RFC 2076   | Common Internet Message Headers                      |
|I | RFC 2068   | Hypertext Transfer Protocol--HTTP/1.1                |
+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|3. MIME (multipurpose Internet mail extensions)                       |
+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|R | RFC 2045   | Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part    |
|  |            | One: Format of Internet Message Bodies               |
|R | RFC 2046   | Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part    |
|  |            | Two: Media Types                                     |
|I | RFC 2048   | Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part    |
|  |            | Four: Registration Procedures                        |
|I | RFC 2049   | Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part    |
|  |            | Five: Conformance Criteria and Examples              |
|O | RFC 2112   | The MIME Multipart/Related Content-type              |
+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|4. MIME Security Multiparts                                           |
+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|R | RFC 1847   | Security Multiparts for MIME: Multipart/Signed and   |
|  |            | Multipart/Encrypted                                  |
|O | RFC 2015   | MIME Security with Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)         |
|I | RFC 1991   | PGP Message Exchange Formats                         |
|O | RFC 1848   | MIME Object Security Services                        |
|O | RFC 2311   | S/MIME Version 2 Message Specification               |
|O | RFC 2312   | S/MIME Version 2 Certificate Handling                |
|I | PKCS(1) #6 | Extended Certificate Syntax Standard                 |
|I | PKCS #7    | Cryptographic Message Syntax Standard                |
|I | PKCS #10   | Certification Request Syntax Standard                |
|I | RFC 1984   | IAB and IESG Statement on Cryptographic Technology   |
|  |            | and the Internet                                     |
|I | RFC 1421   | Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail     |
|  |            | (PEM): Part I: Message Encryption and Authentication |
|  |            | Procedures                                           |
|I | RFC 1422   | PEM: Part II: Certificate-Based Key Management       |
|I | RFC 1423   | PEM: Part III: Algorithms, Modes, and Identifiers    |
|I | RFC 1424   | PEM: Part IV: Key Certification and Related Services |
+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+





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+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|5. Message Disposition Notifications                                  |
+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|R | RFC 1892   | The Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting  |
|  |            | of Mail System Administrative Messages               |
|R | RFC 2298   | An Extensible Message Format for Message Disposition |
|  |            | Notifications                                        |
|I | RFC 1893   | Enhanced Mail System Status Codes                    |
|I | RFC 1894   | An Extensible Message Format for Delivery Status     |
|  |            | Notifications                                        |
+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|6. MIME-based Secure EDI                                              |
+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|R | RFC 1767   | MIME Encapsulation of EDI Objects                    |
|R | draft-     | MIME-based Secure EDI                                |
|  | ietf-      |                                                      |
|  | ediint-as1 |                                                      |
|I | RFC 1865   | EDI Meets the Internet                               |
|I | draft-     | Requirements for Inter-operable Internet EDI         |
|  | ietf-      |                                                      |
|  | ediint-req |                                                      |
+--+------------+------------------------------------------------------+
5.fM


   The existing lower layer protocols (LLP) that are widely used for HL7
versions 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 are the minimal LLP (MLLP), the hybrid LLP
(HLLP), and a subset of ANSI X3.28 as described in appendix C of the HL7
Implementation Support Guide These three protocols have in common that
they require a bi-directional channel on which two HL7 applications
``meet'' and exchange their messages.  This mode of communication is
commonly known as rendezvous or synchronous communications.  This is
because both parties meet each other at the same time on the channel,
and during that time their behavior is synchronized with regard to who
sends and who receives.

   Conversely, HL7 communications over e-mail imply asynchronous
communications.  Each HL7 application has a mailbox where incoming
messages are stored.  There is no need for both applications to be
available at the same time, no need to wait for each other, because a
message can be delivered to the other's mailbox at any time.
Consequently, however, the sending application cannot be sure at what
time the receiver will process its message.  For an HL7 application that
expects synchronous communication, it is often difficult to change its
design so that it can handle asynchronous communications properly.
However, it is possible with special EDI e-mail agents to translate
asynchronous to synchronous behavior.




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   Asynchronous message passing is not new to HL7 as store-and-forward
services are widely used today.  In order to support these, the HL7
control committee defined different levels of acknowledgments since
version 2.2: accept acknowledgment and application acknowledgment.  A
store and forward service responds with an accept acknowledgment if it
has taken responsibility to deliver a message to the final recipient.
The initiator of an HL7 transaction must nevertheless be prepared to get
an (unsolicited) application layer response from the final responder,
which can be an ORR-message from the filler application or just a
(possibly negative) application acknowledgment from any application.  E-
mail messaging is conceptually very similar to the enhanced processing
rules of HL7.(1) 6.fM Thus, it should be straightforward to adjust for
e-mail communications in applications that implement the HL7 enhanced
processing rules.

2.2 E-MAIL

Internet mail must conform to the standard documented in RFC 822.  An
Internet mail message consists of a header and a body.  The header
consists of header fields that are lines of text that start with a
field-name followed by a colon (:) and a field-body.  The field-body can
consist of unstructured text or can itself be structured.  For example:
the Subject header-field of an e-mail contains unstructured text, while
the To header-field contains an address that has a defined format by
which user, host, domain, etc., are specified.

   Header-field names are interpreted in a case-insensitive manner.
Although any printable ASCII character except the space and the colon
are allowed in header fields, the common practice is to use only letters
and dashes.  Thus, dashes concatenate words.  Often the first letter of
a field-name or that of each word is written in upper case; however,
this is just the common style.

   Internet e-mail is typically exchanged using the simple mail transfer
protocol (SMTP) [RFC 821].  However, there is nothing in this
Recommendation that requires the use of SMTP.

2.3 MIME

The body of an RFC 822 message consists of lines of text.  No special
provisions are made for encoding drawings, facsimile, speech, or
structured text.  The Multipurpose(1) 7.fM Internet Mail Extension
(MIME) extends this.  The MIME standard is defined in the RFC documents
2045-2049.  These documents define media-types and encodings along with
rules that allow the extension of the basic MIME standard with new
media-types.  Media-types specify how a given MIME message body (also
called entity) is to be interpreted.  The encoding allows it to specify
an algorithm by which the lines of text found in the body of a MIME



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entity translate into application data.  Thus, MIME encodings allow the
sending of arbitrary binary data or text data that will be inert to
transformations performed by mail transfer agents.

   Media-types are specified by a header field named Content-type.  The
field-body contains the media-type identifier, a slash (/), and the
media-subtype identifier.  The media type is the major category of the
data.  The media-types used in this recommendation are text,
application, multipart and message. Text includes everything that is to
be read by humans.  In this Recommendation, the only subtype of text
used is plain, which stands for straight ASCII text.  The media-type
application usually represents data that is to be processed by computer
programs.  This includes EDI messages in general and HL7 messages in
particular.  A message media type is used to enclose Internet messages
(message/rfc822), to perform splitting (message/partial) or assembly
(message/digest), and for service messages of general relevance to
Internet messaging and MIME (message/disposition-notification).

   The media type specifier is optionally followed by a semicolon (;)
and a list of parameters that are in turn separated by semicolons.  A
parameter consists of a parameter-name followed by an equal (=) and a
value.  The value should generally be enclosed in double quotes to
prevent misinterpretation of special characters.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="abc"                         |
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64                                     |
|                                                                      |
|--abc                                                                 |
|    One intermediary boundary must precede the first body part.       |
|    This is the first body part                                       |
|                                                                      |
|--abc                                                                 |
|    One intermediary boundary occurs between every two body parts.    |
|    This is the second body part.                                     |
|                                                                      |
|--abc--                                                               |
|    The terminal boundary ends with another pair of dashes.           |
|    This is the end of the MIME entity.                               |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 1: Use of intermediary and terminal boundaries in multiparts.


   The media type multipart is special in that it allows the grouping of
other MIME entities.  The entities enclosed by a multipart are usually
referred to as its body parts.  Common multiparts include
multipart/mixed commonly used for e-mail attachments.  A
multipart/report media type [RFC 1892] defines a structure for message



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delivery status and disposition notifications.  The multipart/related
media type [RFC 1872] is used in this recommendation in order to bundle
HL7 response messages with disposition notifications for the HL7 request
messages.

   Boundary lines separate the body parts of a multipart.  A boundary is
an arbitrary string of characters that begins with two dashes (--).
There are intermediary and terminal boundaries.  Intermediary boundaries
are between two body parts of the same multipart MIME entity, while
terminal boundaries mark the end of the last body part.  Terminal
boundaries end with two dashes.  The boundary string must be defined
with the boundary parameter for the multipart MIME media type.

2.4 MIME Security Multiparts

An interface to the security services digital signature and encryption
is provided by the MIME Security Multiparts specification [RFC 1847].
The MIME Security Multipart specifies a common general security
``socket'', into which special security modules can be ``plugged'' in.
This is a very convenient approach as it can cope with the problem that
the final Internet message security specification is not yet defined.
Sections 3 and 4 are dedicated to the discussion of security.

2.5 Message Disposition Notifications

Message disposition notifications are used by the IETF working group on
EDI to implement non-repudiation of receipts.  This concept is discussed
in the next two major sections.  With HL7, message disposition
notifications are not really necessary, as HL7 has its own more powerful
means of keeping track of messages and transactions.  If HL7 response
messages are signed, they convey not just non-refutable message-receipt
statements, but also a legally solid statement of commitment to the HL7
transaction.  The approach of the Internet EDI working group is retained
here in order to be compatible with upcoming commercial software.
However, the group responsible for this recommendation has already
influenced the respective IETF working group.  We will continue to
promote consensus for a solution that allows more concise methods for
interoperable secure HL7 transactions over Internet e-mail.

2.6 MIME-EDI

The IETF working group, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), and its
successor group, Electronic Data Interchange--Internet Integration
(EDIINT), is developing standards for using the Internet for EDI
communications.  This still ongoing effort is the heart of this
recommendation.  Since 1994 there has been one informational RFC 1865
and one standards track RFC 1767 released.  The standard MIME
Encapsulation of EDI Objects (MIME-EDI) [RFC 1767] defines the MIME



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media types application/edifacT, application/edi-x12 and
application/edi-consent that are used to carry EDI messages in their
bodies.

   Obviously, the standards EDIFACT and X12 have their own media
subtypes, while EDI-consent is meant to carry all other EDI standards.
This is not satisfactory for HL7 and other EDI standards organizations
that do not have the privilege of their own subtype.  It has to be
noted, though, that it is not just a matter of being honored or not: the
subtype EDI-consent is just not interoperable.  It is not interoperable
because the selection of the proper EDI protocol depends on site-
negotiations rather than being explicitly specified by the MIME subtype
or a parameter.  In health care EDI this becomes a practical problem as
HL7, ASTM-E31.11, DICOM 3, X12N, EDIFACT and probably other EDI
protocols are often processed by the same message handling system.
Without an explicit protocol selector in the specification of MIME-EDI,
the whole approach would be unusable.

   It is likely that a future revision of the MIME-EDI specification
will improve this situation.  In anticipation of the definite solution,
an interoperable HL7 e-mail agent should recognize all three following
media type identifiers for HL7 messages:

Application/x-EDI-HL7
   where the x- prefix is approved by Internet standards to mark media
   subtypes that are not or not yet standardized by means of an RFC.

Application/EDI-HL7
   should be accepted in anticipation of a definite standard media
   subtype for HL7.  However, today's implementations of this
   recommendation should be conservative when sending messages and
   progressive when accepting them.

Application/EDI-consent
   can only be used in an environment where it is implicitly clear that
   an HL7 message is expected in a MIME-EDI message.  Since this is not
   interoperable, today's implementations of this recommendation should
   accept (if possible) but not send out HL7 messages with EDI-consent
   subtypes.

   To summarize, an HL7 message is sent over e-mail as follows:

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     (1)   Apply the traditional HL7 encoding rules to build a     |
|           presentation of an HL7 message.                         |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+





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+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     (2)   Transform the result of (1) into proper e-mail lines of |
|           text either by base64 or by quoted-printable transfer   |
|           encoding.                                               |
|     (3)   Encapsulate the result of (2) in a MIME-EDI entity by   |
|           appending it to the following two MIME header lines and |
|           one empty line:                                         |
|     (4)   The result of (3) is a complete MIME entity carrying an |
|           HL7 message.  You can proceed now by either of the      |
|           following:                                              |
|                                                                   |
|           Content-Type: Application/x-EDI-HL7                     |
|           Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 or quoted-printable   |
|                <blank line>                                       |
|                                                                   |
|   (4.1)   Prepend e-mail headers [RFC 822] and send the e-mail    |
|           message to the receiver,                                |
|or (4.2)   Wrap the result of (3) into MIME Security Multiparts as |
|           described in section 4.                                 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

   For an example of an HL7 message encapsulated in MIME e-mail, please
refer to section 5.

   Another problem with using the MIME-EDI specification for HL7 is that
there is no way to specify the encoding rules used to produce the
presentation of the HL7 message.  Today this is a latent problem as
almost everyone is using the traditional HL7 encoding rules.  However,
for HL7 version 3 there will be multiple Implementable Technology
Specifications (ITS).  By that time, the problem will become manifest.
HL7 participates in the IETF to promote the following parameters for the
MIME-EDI media type to improve this and other shortcomings of the MIME-
EDI specification in the near future:

Syntax
   by which encoding rules can be specified.  Possible syntax-
   identifiers would be tHL7er, ER7, XML, and BER.

Protocol
   by which the EDI protocol can be specified.  This will probably be
   used if the IETF decides to keep the EDI-consent approach rather than
   define new MIME subtypes for other EDI protocols.

Version
   by which the version of the EDI protocols can be specified.  For HL7
   this could be 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, or 3.0.





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Feature
   by which other features of either the EDI protocol or the encoding
   rules can be specified.

   Please note that these parameters are not standardized yet and should
therefore not be produced by implementations of this recommendation.
Implementers who want to experiment with these features should always
add the x- prefix!

   The specifications of the EDIINT group are documented in so-called
``Applicability Statements'' (AS).  The AS#1, MIME-based Secure EDI,
describes EDI message delivery using MIME extended e-mail and is the
basis of this recommendation.  An AS#2, EDI over HTTP, extends the AS#1
to be useable for communication with WWW servers.  HL7 is seeking to be
further compatible with this approach.  Other applicability statements
will follow, including one that describes the HL7 use of the EDIINT
specifications.

3 Security I: General Issues

3.1 Security Services

When sensitive transactions are communicated over public networks,
security is always an issue.  This is especially true when e-mail is
involved, because e-mail messages may be routed over unknown store-and-
forward servers. This means that the Internet would be inadequate to
convey sensitive data, unless security services are applied. There are
many security services. The most important services for our purpose are
integrity, authenticity, authorization, confidentiality and non-
repudiation.

3.1.1 Integrity

A receiving system needs to be sure that the messages exchanged are not
corrupted, either voluntarily by an offender or involuntarily through
technical defects.

3.1.2 Authenticity

A receiving system needs to be sure that the identity of the sender of a
message is as indicated. The identity of the sender is indicated by
either explicit information within the message, or by implicit
information about the environment in which the message was received
(e.g. remote address to which a socket is connected). However, these
indicators can be subject to forgery. Therefore it requires a special
service to determine the true sender of a message.





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3.1.3 Authorization

   A receiving system must decide whether the sender of a given message
is allowed to send that message or not. For example, if the message
conveys a request for a service it must be assured that the sender is
eligible to initiate this service. This requires that the identity of
the sender be known for sure, hence, authenticity is the basis for
authorization.

   On the other hand, a sender submitting sensible information in a
message needs to be sure that only the authorized recipients of that
message will have access to that data. This aspect of authorization is
normally labeled confidentiality.

3.1.4 Confidentiality

Confidentiality means to assure that information in a message be
propagated only to authorized recipients and not disclosed to others.
However, it is important to distinguish between two different kinds of
unauthorized disclosure: The first is eavesdropping or interception that
occurs on the channel between two partners. But even though a message is
conveyed over a secure channel, the receiver might--voluntarily or
involuntarily--fail to handle the received information confidentially.
While interception between endpoints can readily be prevented by the
communication technology described in this document, assuring non-
disclosure at the communicating endpoints is much of a non-technical
issue. It requires not only that access control information be
exchanged, but also that a policy is in place to assure that all
communicating systems obey the access control information.(1) 8.fM

3.1.5 Non-repudiation

Non-repudiation is a general requirement in electronic business
communication.  A statement that has been made electronically must have
the same legal dignity as one that has been made in written form on
paper.  This is all-important, since the essence of EDI is to replace
paper-based communication.  Business communication, whether on paper or
electronically, does not work without the chance to sue for and to be
sued for a commitment that has not been kept.  Thus, non-repudiation is
about collecting evidence for the rare but significant cases where a
lawsuit is to be supported or defeated in court.

   The security requirement for non-repudiation focuses on the
communicating partners and does not deal with attackers.  However,
integrity and authenticity are the basis for non-repudiation.  As long
as a third party could possibly forge messages, either party could
reasonably repudiate what has appeared to occur for the other.  In EDI
communication in general, and for HL7 in particular, it is important to



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distinguish three different kinds of non-repudiation:

1  Non-repudiation of origin is to assure that a sender of a message
   cannot deny having sent that message including all information that
   it contains.

2  Non-repudiation of receipt is to assure that a receiver of a message
   cannot deny having been informed about the contents of that message.

3  Non-repudiation of commitment is to assure that neither party that is
   involved in a transaction communicated by the exchange of messages
   can later deny the agreement to the information exchanged and its
   implied obligations.  The difference between non-repudiation of
   receipt versus commitment is important: to agree having received a
   message is not the same as agreeing to what that message says.

3.1.6 More About Security Services

The security services discussed here are not the only ones known to the
literature, neither do they form a sufficient set to prevent against all
kinds of security threads. For instance time-related threads or
sequencing threads are not addressed by these services.(1) 9.fM

   Obviously security services mutually depend on and overlap each
other. For instance, authenticity means not only that the sender of a
message is truly the sender, but also that the information within that
message is not altered by others, i.e. that the message integrity is
assured. To assure the integrity of a message is a special kind of
authorization, as write-access to the message is denied for unauthorized
entities. Confidentiality, on the other hand, is another special case of
authorization, where read-access to the message is granted only after
proper authorization. Authorization in turn requires identification and
authentication of the entity that wants to access services subject to
authorization. It is difficult to classify security services as of lower
and higher levels unless the abstract discussion is filled with concrete
mechanisms that implement these security services.

3.2 Mechanisms

3.2.1 Cryptographic Algorithms

Many security services are provided through cryptographic methods.  An
encryption algorithm (cipher) takes a key and transforms the cleartext
message into a cryptogram (ciphertext) that is nearly impossible to
decipher without the knowledge of a key that unlocks the information.
Cryptoanalysis tries to guess the key of a cryptogram in order to gain
unauthorized access to the cleartext.  Cryptoanalysis is an important
field of study in cryptology since only those cryptographic algorithms



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can be considered secure that prove resistant to intensive attacks by
the brightest cryptologists in the world.  The development of strong
checksum algorithms is another field of information science that has
many relationships to cryptology and is essential to modern
cryptographic technologies.

3.2.1.1 Message Integrity Check

Checksums have long been used in order to prove the integrity of a
message.  Since any communication channel bears some noise, generating
and proving checksums on messages are essential disciplines in
communication technology.  Users of HL7 have seen checksums as check-
digits (Mod 10 and Mod 11) in patient identifiers, or as the BCC or
CRC-16 algorithms used in the HLLP or ANSI X3.28 lower level protocols.
Cryptography, however, requires checksums that are stronger than Mod 10,
Mod 11, BCC or CRC-16. The BCC algorithm is particularly weak since a
modification can simply cancel out itself if it occurs at two different
places in a message.

   With cryptographically strong checksums, also known as message
digests, it is virtually impossible to modify a message while retaining
the same checksum.  Message digest algorithms commonly used today are
MD5 (Message Digest 5), developed by Ron Rivest, and SHA-1 (Secure Hash
Algorithm 1) published by the Government of the United States.  MD5
produces a 128-bit checksum and SHA-1 produces one with 160 bits.

3.2.1.2 Symmetric Ciphers

The simplest form of cryptography uses a single key for both encryption
and decryption.  This is what is called symmetric encryption with a
secret key, since the same key is used for ciphering and deciphering and
is therefore a shared secret between sender and receiver of an encrypted
message.

   Through symmetric encryption, a message is not only protected against
unauthorized interception, but also against meaningful alteration,
because only someone who knows the key can produce valid cryptograms.
However, symmetric encryption is unable to authenticate the originator
of the message from among those who share the secret key. This helps to
keep intruders out but fails to prevent repudiation and forgery among
those who communicate.

   Because the key must be kept secret by all of the communicating
partners, all of them need to trust each other.  The more participants
there are, the more fragile becomes the security.  Whenever a
participant has his copy of the key disclosed, voluntarily or not, the
security is broken for all.  Therefore, symmetric key encryption rarely
works for more than two partners and requires that the key be frequently



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+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                      |
|                                  .                                   |
|          SENDER                  .               RECIPIENT           |
|                                 Key                                  |
|                        +--------( )--------+                         |
|                        |         .         |                         |
|                        |         .         |                         |
|                        |         .         |                         |
|          cleartext     V    cryptogram     V     cleartext           |
|             (A)------>[ ]------>(?)------>[ ]------>(A)              |
|                     cipher       .      decipher                     |
|                                  .                                   |
|                                  .                                   |
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 2: The key in symmetric ciphers is a shared secret.

changed, which must be negotiated through another secure channels.

   Typical symmetric encryption algorithms are the US Federal Data
Encryption Standard (DES), which has been well known since the 1970s.
It comes in many different variations.  The electronic codebook (ECB)
mode is the simplest and weakest and is not recommended by the US
Government.  Stronger but more complex modes are Cipher Feedback (CFB)
and Cipher Block Chaining (CBC).  Although the DES is the most widely
used algorithm for commercial level cryptography, it has proved to be
insecure.  Even with brute-force attacks that are nothing more than
trial and error, it is possible to decipher any key with the usual key
length of 56 bits.  It can be shown that for an investment of $10
million, any DES cryptogram can be cracked within minutes.  Therefore,
the DES, which the US Government itself never trusted for classified
data, is now considered dead for commercial applications as well.  Of
course, by lengthening the key by a factor of two, triple DES (DES3)
could rescue the general approach, while being three times slower.

   The International Data Encryption Algorithm (IDEA), published in
1990, is relatively new and therefore its weaknesses will be discovered
only as time passes.  However, it has already proved to be more
resistant against one of the most challenging attacks on the DES.  Many
researchers and agencies are continuously trying to crack the IDEA and
have so far been unable to do so.  Because of this, confidence in this
algorithm is growing.  IDEA uses keys of a fixed length of 128 bits,
which is more than DES3.





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   RC2 and RC4 are algorithms by RSA Data Security, Inc. that can use
variable length keys.  RC2 and RC4, like IDEA, are less well studied
than DES.  The US Government put export restrictions on software that
allows more than 56 bits of key length.  Since key lengths of at least
128 bit are recommended for any serious application, applications
created in the USA which use these algorithms cannot be used
internationally.

3.2.1.3 Asymmetric Ciphers

As the terms symmetric encryption suggest, there is also an asymmetric
encryption.  Asymmetric encryption works with a pair of keys: one key is
used to encrypt the data and the other is used for decryption.  It does
not matter which one is used for encryption, as long as the other is
used for decryption.  You cannot decrypt a ciphertext that was encrypted
by the same key.  Asymmetric encryption is also known as public key
encryption, because everyone publishes one of the keys while keeping the
other, the private key, very secret.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
|                      Key1                                            |
|          SENDER       ( )                                            |
|                        |                                             |
|                        |                                             |
|                        V              decipher   cleartext           |
|             (A)------>[ ]------>(?)------>[ ]------>(A)              |
|          cleartext  cipher   cryptogram    A                         |
|                                            |                         |
|                                            |                         |
|                                           ( )    RECIPIENT           |
|                                           Key2                       |
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 3: Asymmetric encryption uses two complementary keys.


   Through the policy that one key is known by everyone while the other
key is kept secret to the owner, public key encryption immediately
provide the following security services:

Confidentiality
   Everyone can send data to you encrypted with your public key.  This
   allows only you, the authorized reader, to decrypt the message with
   your secret key.  Not even the originator can decipher this
   cryptogram.



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Authentication
   You can send data to everyone encrypted with your secret key.  This
   will not protect your data against unauthorized readers, since anyone
   may have access to your public decryption key and decrypt the data.
   You are, however, authenticated as the originator of the data,
   because you are the exclusive owner of the encryption key.

Non-repudiation of origin
   As a consequence of authentication, you cannot deny being the
   originator of a message, because no one else could have encrypted it
   with your secret key.  This performs a function similar to that of a
   signature in the world of paper documents.

   W. Diffie and M. Hellman discovered the first asymmetric encryption
algorithm in 1976.  The Diffie-Hellman (DH) algorithm is based on the
problem of discrete logarithms.  The algorithm supports variable key
length, and is preferably used with 512 to 1024 bits.  DH can be used to
exchange session keys for a digital envelope, as described in the
sections following.  However, since it normally requires exchanging the
keys before communication starts, it is suitable only in synchronous
communication, and not for message passing.  Moreover, DH key exchange
cannot provide authentication.

   In 1977, R.  Rivest, A.  Shamir, and L.  Adleman from MIT published
the most widely used asymmetric encryption algorithm. The Rivest-Shamir-
Adleman algorithm (RSA) is based on the problem of factoring out large
integers.  It allows for variable key length, where at least 512 bits
are necessary and 1024 or even 2048 bits are recommended for critical
applications.  RSA with 1024 bit key length decrypts messages 4000 times
slower than the 128 bit symmetric IDEA cipher, while 3100 bits are
required in order to make an RSA cryptogram as secure as one created by
IDEA.(1) 10.fM

3.2.2 Cryptographic Protocols

Symmetric ciphers, asymmetric ciphers, and checksums are not very useful
on their own.  Symmetric ciphers are inflexible concerning key
management, while asymmetric ciphers are usually very inefficient in
that they consume a lot of computation resources to produce cryptograms
that can be cracked with a moderate effort.  Message integrity checksums
can only guarantee the integrity of a message if an offender is unable
to replace a new checksum for the modified message.  However, a
combination of all three methods can provide the strength and
flexibility that is required in secure communications.

   The combinations of these methods require protocols that specify
which method is applied to which data and in which sequence.  As with
all protocols, such protocol frameworks that are built around



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cryptographic algorithms require standardization in order to allow
interoperable communications.  And as with most standards, there are
options, alternatives, and competitors.  Regardless of how intensely
this competition is fought, it is important to note that all these
protocols follow the same essential design principles.  They all build
digital envelopes, digital signatures and certificates in mostly the
same way.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
|         SENDER       recipient's   recipient's   RECIPIENT           |
|                       public key   private key                       |
|                           ( )         ( )                            |
|         generate           |           |                             |
|         random      DEK    V           V    DEK                      |
|           [ ]------>( )-->[ ]-->(?)-->[ ]-->( )                      |
|                      |  asymm.  : :  asymm.  |                       |
|                      |  cipher  : :  deciph. |                       |
|                      V          : :          V                       |
|           (A)------>[ ]-------->(?)-------->[ ]------>(A)            |
|         cleartext  symm.      digital       symm.  cleartext         |
|                    cipher     envelope   decipher                    |
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 4: Hybrid symmetric and asymmetric key encryption. The asymmetric
cipher is used only to encrypt the data encryption key (DEK) while the
bulk data of the message is encrypted with one of the stronger and more
efficient symmetric ciphers.


   The competing cryptographic protocol suites that apply to e-mail are
PGP v2 and S/MIME v2.  Both protocol suites are used today in versions
that are to be replaced in the near future.  PGP v2 is replaced by
``Open PGP''(1) 11.fM and S/MIME v2 is replaced by S/MIME v3.  The
motivation for this change is primarily that the RSA algorithm,
essential to old PGP and S/MIME v2, is encumbered with a patent and a
restrictive license.  This makes the world of security difficult.
However, unencumbered alternatives for the RSA algorithm exist that are
being used by both upcoming revisions of PGP and S/MIME.

3.2.2.1 Digital Envelope

The digital envelope ``wraps'' the message into a ciphertext using a
symmetric algorithm with a key that is just a random sequence of bits
generated for every envelope.  This key is called the data encryption
key (DEK) of the message and equals the session key in secure



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synchronous communications.  The data encryption key is in turn
encrypted by an asymmetric cipher using the public key of the receiver
of the message, which ``seals'' the envelope.

   A digital envelope is much more powerful than a paper envelope, as it
allows itself to be ``opened'' only to the dedicated recipients.  More
than one recipient can be specified by appending the message-key
encrypted with the public key of each recipient.

3.2.2.2 Digital Signature

Some kind of digital signature is performed when encrypting a message
with one's secret key.  The receiver decrypts the message with the
matching public key knowing that only the holder of the secret key could
have produced it.  However, it is important that there be redundancy in
the message by which the receiver can tell whether the decrypted data is
really a meaningful message.  Therefore, the digital signature only
makes sense with a message digest.  In order to conserve computation
resources, the digital signature service is usually designed such that
only the message digest is calculated over the whole message.  The
asymmetric encryption is done on the message digest only.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
|         SENDER         sender's     sender's      RECIPIENT          |
|                     private key     public key                       |
|                          ( )           ( )                           |
|                           |   digital   |                            |
|         calculate  MIC    V  signature  V    MIC     verify          |
|           [ ]----->( )-->[ ]--->(?)--->[ ]-->( )----->[ ]            |
|            A            asymm.  : :   asymm.           A             |
|            |            cipher  : :   deciph.          |             |
|            |                    : :                    |             |
|           (A)------------------>(A)------------------>(A)            |
|         cleartext                                 cleartext          |
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 5: A digital signature is an encrypted message integrity check
(MIC). The Data remains readable in transit, but tampering it will
invalidate the signature.


3.2.2.3 Certificates

A certificate is a pair that includes the name of a person and its
associated public key.  This association, in order to be trustworthy,



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must be electronically signed by someone else who guarantees that the
public key really belongs to the person named in the certificate.
Certificates are needed to make public key cryptosystems work.

   For digital signatures, this is especially obvious: you cannot trust
a signature that you have never seen before, a signature whose
authenticity has not been verified.  Notably, the paper world works with
such unverified signatures and there is always a risk that someone can
place an order in another's name.  If the filler has never seen the
authorizing signature, he cannot tell whether it is truly authentic.
The same is true for digital signatures.  Certificates are used to
verify the authenticity of someone's public keys, and therefore verify
the authenticity of digital signatures that can be checked using that
public key.

   The essential difficulty is that a secure communication environment
cannot be synthesized de novo: There is no way to install a confidential
communication without prior confidence.  In the simplest case, the
partners who wish to communicate securely can mutually exchange their
public keys.  However, at least message integrity and authenticity must
be assured on the channel where the public keys are exchanged.  This
could ultimately be a face-to-face meeting.  Conversely, exchanging
public keys electronically without personal meetings is either
impossible or unnecessary: it is impossible if there is no pre-installed
secure electronic channel; but it is unnecessary if there is already a
secure electronic channel!

   This dilemma can only be overcome by a third person stepping into the
scene, a person, who knows one partner and his public key and whose name
and public key is known and trusted by the other partner.  Such a third
person can ``introduce'' one partner to another.  Thus, an essential
component of a certificate is the digital signature of other persons who
certify the association between name and public key and in whose
certificates other people trust.  This is the one and only way by which
``digital trust'' spreads throughout the world.

   There are, however, two competing architectures for establishing a
confidential communication environment.  One is a hierarchical
organization of certification authorities who sign certificates and whom
all communicating parties trust.  Such an authority is also called a
trusted third party (TTP).  In another approach, every user acts as her
own certification authority but not everyone needs to trust that
authority.  This approach has been called the web of trust.  There is
considerable competition between advocates of both approaches.  However,
it has to be noted that both are essentially the same: trust is mediated
by third parties, regardless of whether they are organized
hierarchically or more informally.  Both approaches are useful in
certain cases and both have their right to exist.  Because both



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approaches are essentially the same, both could, but are not currently,
being implemented using a common interoperable protocol.

3.2.2.4 Non-Repudiation

All types of non-repudiation make use of the digital signature.  All
material that is to be protected against repudiation must be stored in
the original form that was signed by the responsible person (individual
or organization).  In order to defeat a repudiation threat in court,
that original piece of evidence along with the digital signature of the
responsible person must be presented.  It is not enough to log that a
signature on some material had been validated if the material cannot be
reproduced later in exactly the same form in which it was signed.  With
HL7 messages there are generally many ways to represent the same
information, which is why non-repudiation requires the archiving of all
inbound and outbound signed material.

   Although this Recommendation is about inter-systems communication
rather than system architecture and policy, it is important to note that
non-repudiation as a ``legal event'' requires a clear definition of who
shall be held responsible for what actions or information communicated
between systems.  In short, the question is, who signs what?  As opposed
to signatures in the paper world, digital signatures can be
organizational as well as individual.  An organizational signature
assigns responsibility to a group of individuals.  Users in health care
often do not communicate as individuals, but as professionals that fill
certain roles.  Furthermore, individual users normally do not produce
HL7 messages directly so that they cannot be held individually
responsible for the contents of the messages.  Rather, the user
interacts with one or more application programs that in cooperation with
other users and programs eventually send HL7 messages.  The individual
user should not need to sign an HL7 message.  An organizational
signature should be applied on HL7 messages instead.  Individual
responsibilities should be tracked within, not between, the
communicating systems.(1) 12.fM

Non-Repudiation of Origin
   Non-repudiation of origin is readily implemented using digital
   signatures as described above.  The digital signature identifies the
   signer and verifies the integrity of the signed information.

Non-Repudiation of Receipt
   Non-repudiation of receipt can be established by non-repudiation of
   origin of a receipt statement that is returned to the sender of a
   message.  A signed receipt notification once more requires a
   protocol: not only a protocol that describes message formats and
   contents, but also one that specifies rules of behavior with respect
   to when and how a receipt statement is returned.



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   The format of the receipt statement that is required here is
   described by the draft AS#1 issued by the Internet EDI working group
   that in turn refers to RFC 2298.  Non-repudiation of receipt (NRR) is
   a ``legal event'' that occurs when a signed message disposition
   notification (MDN) has been returned by the receiver and has been
   checked by the sender for validity.

Non-Repudiation of Commitment
   Non-repudiation of commitment requires that the responder of an
   interchange send back not just a receipt statement, but an explicit
   statement of commitment to the content of the message and its implied
   obligations. The commitment occurs on the application layer as
   opposed to the mere receipt statement that can be issued by transport
   layer agents.  Some transactions seem not to require an explicit
   commitment statement.  For instance, invoice messages do not require
   a commitment because the receiver of the invoice agrees to the
   invoice when he issues a purchase order.  However, in court, the
   sender of the invoice cannot support his case only by presenting the
   invoice message and the respective receipt statement.  He must rather
   present evidence that the invoice is justified by a purchase order
   and that he delivered the ordered goods. In court, no obligation can
   be claimed without an explicit non-refutable commitment that was made
   between the plaintiff and the adversary. Through non-repudiation of
   commitment, EDI transactions can be regarded as electronic contracts.

   Given this background, it is a questionable practice in many EDI
protocols not to require explicit acknowledgment messages.  Fortunately,
HL7 is exemplary for its good practice here.  Normally HL7 transactions
consist of two messages, a request and a reply.  The reply message often
is an ACK, but it can be any other message that contains an MSA-Segment.
Thus, for instance, ORM messages are correctly responded to by ORR
messages.  Other reply messages of HL7 v2.3 are: DSR, ADR, RRA, RRF,
RRE, RRG, ORF, MFK, MFR, SRR, RPI, RPL, RPR, RCO, RCL, RPA, RRI, PRR,
PPV, PGR, PTR, PPT and NMR.

   Because non-repudiation of commitment occurs on the application
layer, only those HL7 reply messages can serve for non-repudiation of
commitment that have an acknowledgment code AA (application
acknowledgment).  Note that an accept acknowledgment (CA) is meaningless
for non-repudiation of commitment, since it can be followed by a second
response message that reports an application error (AE) or application
reject (AR).

   A signed accept acknowledgment is comparable to a signed receipt.
However, it must be noted that an accept acknowledgment does not
 conclude an HL7 transaction.  Therefore, a positive accept
acknowledgment must not be misinterpreted as a statement of commitment
to the application layer transaction.  A signed accept acknowledgment



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should, however, correctly be interpreted as the legally obliging
response of a store and forward service, whose only obligation it is to
forward a message to the ultimate recipient.  Thus, the store and
forward service can be held legally responsible for failure to deliver
the message but not for failure of the ultimate recipient to comply with
the message.

4 Security II: Implementation Issues

4.1 MIME Security in General

This recommendation requires that secure e-mail communications use the
MIME Security Multiparts [RFC 1847].  RFC 1847 specifies abstract
classes for security services, digital signature and encryption.  It
does not suggest that any specific cryptographic algorithm or protocol
suite be used, but acts as a common interface to any of the existing and
future cryptographic suites.  Today there are specializations for PGP
2.6 [RFC 2015], and a general MIME Object Security Standard (MOSS)
[RFC 1848].  MOSS was defined as a MIME compliant successor of PEM, the
Privacy Enhanced E-Mail specification [RFC 1421-1424].  MOSS has not
been widely recognized, probably due to the noise around S/MIME and PGP.
S/MIME is a MIME-specification for the Public Key Cryptography Standards
(PKCS) protocol suite by RSA Data Security, Inc.  It has only rarely
been noted that S/MIME does not completely fit into the framework of
MIME Security Multiparts and the current drafts for the upcoming version
3 of S/MIME do not seem to address this problem.  The Open PGP protocol
suite that will replace the old PGP version 2.6 will most likely plug
into the MIME Security Multiparts as did its predecessor.

   The existing security protocol suites, PGP v2.6 and S/MIME v2,
suffered from the fact that they used patented algorithms, RSA and IDEA.
Because of the restrictive licensing policy of the patent holders, these
algorithms do not meet the Internet community's policy that Internet
standards be implementable by anyone without having to pay excessive
royalties.  The ongoing effort on Open PGP and S/MIME v3 will probably
either change the patent holders' policies or replace the encumbered
algorithms.  At the present time, however, these specifications are
still works in progress and are currently not available to production
applications.  It cannot be foreseen yet whether Open PGP or S/MIME v3
will finally be selected as the standard, and it is very likely that
both of them will remain widely used in the future independently of
their official acceptance by the IETF.  The modular approach of the MIME
Security Multiparts specification allows coping with this delicate
situation.  It basically defines multipart/encrypted and
multipart/signed media types.






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4.1.1 Authenticity: Multipart/Signed

The multipart/signed media type consists of two parts: The cleartext
data of the message is conveyed in the first part, while the second part
holds the signature for the first part.  The format of the signature
depends on the security protocol suite that is used.  The security
protocol suite is specified for the MIME multipart by a mandatory
parameter named protocol.  Another mandatory parameter micalg specifies
the Message Integrity Check (Digest) Algorithm used for the digital
signature.  However, the micalg depends on the protocol and its
specification is mostly redundant, although it is mandatory.  Table 2
gives a synopsis of the protocol and micalg parameters for signatures.


Table 2: Protocols for Multipart/Signed.

+---------+-----------------------------+---------+
|Suite    | Protocol                    | MICALG  |
+---------+-----------------------------+---------+
|MIME-PGP | Application/pgp-signature   | pgp-md5 |
|MOSS     | Application/moss-signature  | any     |
|S/MIME   | Application/pkcs7-signature | rsa-md5 |
+---------+-----------------------------+---------+


   Although the first body part contains a MIME entity in cleartext, it
is important that the representation of this data be canonicalized.  It
must be guaranteed that no mail agent modifies the signed body part
since the slightest modification would invalidate the signature.  This
can be assured if a proper MIME encoding is used.  Base-64 encoding is
usually the most efficient.  If maximum human readability of the plain
message is required for debugging purpose, the quoted-printable encoding
can be used as well.  MIME 7-bit encoding can be used only if the
payload allows it, with EDI messages, this is normally not the case,
even though the traditional encoding rules for EDI messages normally use
only printable characters.  In HL7, however, segment terminators are
single carriage-return characters (ASCII code 13) which are not inert to
translations in plain 7-bit e-mail messages.  Therefore, signed HL7
messages should always use base-64 or quoted-printable encoding.

   For signatures it is important to canonicalize the data to be signed
before the calculation of the message digest.  Canonicalization means
that text data is represented in 7-bit ASCII with lines terminated by a
carriage return (CR, ASCII code 13) and a line feed (LF, ASCII code 10).
If a signature is calculated without canonicalization, it might be
rendered invalid if the message is communicated between different
operating systems.  Canonicalization is done in the following steps:




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+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     (1)   Generate base64 or content-transfer encoding of the        |
|           presentation of the HL7 message.                           |
|     (2)   Generate the MIME-EDI entity as described in section 2.6.  |
|     (3)   Convert the native end-of-line sequence to ASCII CR+LF.    |
|     (4)   Only then calculate the signature or the message integrity |
|           check.                                                     |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

4.1.2 Confidentiality: Multipart/Encrypted

The multipart/encrypted media type consists of two parts.  The second
part is simply an application/octet-stream, i.e., any sequence of bytes
that contain an encrypted MIME entity.  The first part is there to
convey all necessary information in order to decrypt the second part
correctly.  Obviously, the first part must be specific to the security
protocol suite.  Its media-type is application, but its media subtype
depends on the security protocol suite used for a particular message as
shown in table 3.  The security protocol suite is selected by a
parameter protocol of the multipart/encrypted MIME entity.


Table 3: Protocols for Multipart/Encrypted.

+---------+---------------------------+
|Suite    | Protocol                  |
+---------+---------------------------+
|MIME-PGP | application/pgp-encrypted |
|MOSS     | application/moss-keys     |
|S/MIME   | application/pkcs7-mime(1) |
+---------+---------------------------+
13.fM


   Normally, a message should be signed and encrypted.  In order to hide
as much information as possible, a MIME-EDI entity after conversion to a
canonical form should first be signed and then encrypted.  Although some
security protocol suites allow the signing and encryption of a message
in a single step, this practice must not be followed according to this
recommendation.  The rationale is that encryption is usually required
only for messages in transit over the network.  When the message is
finally delivered into a secure mailbox of the ultimate recipient, the
digital envelope can be opened and thrown away.  Conversely, it is
essential that the message is always archived in its canonical form
accompanied by the valid signature, as this is required to prove non-
repudiation.





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4.1.3 Non-repudiation of receipt: Multipart/Report

An initiator of an HL7 transaction can request from the responder a
signed receipt statement called a Message Disposition Notification
(MDN).  The request for a signed MDN is issued by including the
following header lines into the e-mail message that conveys an HL7
message:

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Disposition-Notification-To: <return-address>                         |
|Disposition-Notification-Options: signed-receipt-protocol=0,<protocol>|
|                                  signed-receipt-micalg=0, <micalg>   |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+


   The parameters <protocol> and <micalg> are the same as defined in
table 2 for multipart/signed.

   Even if no signature protocol <protocol> or message integrity check
algorithm <micalg> was requested, the responder of an HL7 message
exchange should take notice of the level and methods of security applied
by the initiator.  When the responder sends its reply message, it should
apply the same level and methods of security.  Whether requested or not,
we recommend that a responder always accompanies the HL7 response by an
MDN receipt using the application/x-edi-response multipart specified in
section 4.1.4.

   The responder then generates a signed receipt as follows:























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+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     (1)   Create a MIME entity of type multipart/report as per      |
|           RFC 2298.                                                 |
|     (2)   Select a boundary string <boundary> For example, use the  |
|           following template:                                       |
|                                                                     |
|           Content-Type: multipart/report;                           |
|                         report-type="disposition-notification";     |
|                         boundary="<boundary>"                       |
|           Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit                           |
|                <blank line>                                         |
|           --<boundary>                                              |
|           Content-Type: text/plain                                  |
|           Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit                           |
|                <blank line>                                         |
|           <some text describing the status>                         |
|                <blank line>                                         |
|           --<boundary>                                              |
|           Content-Type: message/disposition-notification            |
|           Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit                           |
|                <blank line>                                         |
|           Reporting-UA: <receiver's host-address>;                  |
|                <ua-identifying-string>                              |
|           Final-Recipient: rfc822; <receiver's e-mail-address>      |
|           Original-Message-ID: <message-id>                         |
|           Disposition: automatic-action/MDN-sent-automatically;     |
|                <status>                                             |
|           Received-Content-MIC: <mic>,<micalg>                      |
|                <blank line>                                         |
|           --<boundary>--                                            |
|                                                                     |
|     (3)   If you want to append an HL7 response message continue as |
|           described in section 4.1.4; otherwise sign the MDN report |
|           as described in section 4.1.1.                            |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

   The <ua-identifying-string> above can be any string that indicates
which HL7 mail agent (user agent) software has been used to receive the
message and generate the report.  The Original-Message-ID above repeats
the RFC 822 Message-ID of the request message.  The Received-Content-MIC
is the message integrity check in base64 encoding of the body of the
request message.  This message integrity check is calculated over the
same text that was subject to signature by the initiator.  Note again
that this text must be transformed into canonical form before the MIC is
calculated.  Examples for <micalg> values are MD5 or SHA1, the EDIINT
working group suggests using SHA1 by default.





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   The <status> of the MDN indicates whether the message was processed
successfully or not.  RFC 2298 defines this field to be of the format
<disposition-type>/<disposition-modifiers>.  The disposition types and
modifiers that are relevant to EDI are those listed in tables 4 and 5.
The EDIINT group's AS#1 document mentions only a subset of the
disposition types and modifiers defined in RFC 2298.  This does not,
however, necessarily imply that the other types and modifiers defined
for MDNs are not applicable to EDI.

   The normal disposition type of an EDI message is processed. It is
important to take note of the exact definition of what ``processed''
actually means and what it does not mean.  If not qualified by one of
the modifiers error or warning, the initiator of an EDI transaction can
only rely on a proper processing of the EDI request message.  The result
that is conveyed in the EDI response message can still be different from
what the initiator expected.  The statement of an MDN does therefore not
obviate the need for the careful examination of the contents of the EDI
response message, and does not conclude an EDI transaction as a ``legal
event.''


Table 4: Disposition types that are relevant to EDI.

+-----------+----------------------------------------------------+
|Type       | Meaning                                            |
+-----------+----------------------------------------------------+
|processed  | The message has been processed by the EDI          |
|           | application.                                       |
|failed     | The MDN receipt could not be generated.            |
|dispatched | The message has been forwarded to some other       |
|           | recipient(s).                                      |
|deleted    | The message has been deleted.                      |
|denied     | The return of a requested MDN receipt is denied    |
|           | (see text).                                        |
+-----------+----------------------------------------------------+


   The disposition type dispatched can be used by interface engines or
other HL7 message routers to signify that the message has been forwarded
to a particular recipient.  In these cases, it is adequate to accompany
the MDN by an HL7 accept acknowledgement as defined in the enhanced HL7
processing rules.  Message ``routing'' in the context of HL7 often means
to determine an appropriate recipient for some information.  For
instance, laboratory results for a given patient should always be routed
to the application that currently has care of the patient.  The process
of routing an encrypted EDI message normally requires unwrapping the
message from the digital envelope that was addressed to the routing
application and encrypting it again for the recipient to whom the



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message is forwarded.

   If a store-and-forward service is unable to deliver some message to a
final destination for a certain amount of time, it must be able to
remove the message from its queue.  This exceptional condition should be
reported to the originator of the message.  The disposition type
deleted/expired is an adequate label for this case.  Note that problems
that occur with e-mail routing are reported by delivery status
notifications and not by MDN.  As explained above, EDI message routing
can occur on a different level than e-mail message routing, and thus
should use a different way to report problems.


Table 5: Disposition modifiers that are relevant to EDI.

+-----------+----------------------------------------------------+
|Modifier   | Meaning                                            |
+-----------+----------------------------------------------------+
|error      | An error occurred that prevented successful        |
|           | processing.                                        |
|warning    | An exception occurred, but processing was          |
|           | successful.                                        |
|superseded | The message has been rendered obsolete by an other |
|           | message received.                                  |
|expired    | Used with disposition type deleted. The message    |
|           | has been automatically removed from the mailbox    |
|           | after some time.                                   |
+-----------+----------------------------------------------------+


   The deleted/superseded disposition type can be used in the situation
where an EDI application received a retransmission or a correction on a
message that has not yet been processed.  This can occur when an
initiating application has a short timeout interval, after which it
retransmits the original request message if no response has been
received.

   The EDIINT AS#1 states that an EDI mail agent must not be
configurable to deny a request for an MDN receipt.  Even though it may
be generally reasonable to honor such a request, it certainly affects
the autonomy of EDI applications concerning their administrational
policy.  MDNs, especially if signed, are acts of legal relevance and
policy might require the withholding or denial of an MDN on a message to
prevent sending an incorrect legal statement.  Standardization of EDI
communications should promote interoperability on a technical level.
Administrational policy of autonomous systems should not be affected
light-heartedly.  In EDI, policy must always take precedence over
technology.  A technologically oriented standard that interferes with



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policy forces a user to bend the standard in favor of policy.  This in
turn limits interoperability on the technical level. This
notwithstanding, policy is a cornerstone of secure EDI messaging and
should be covered in trading partner agreements.

4.1.4 Non-Repudiation of Commitment: Multipart/Related

A complete HL7 transaction should consist of a request message flowing
from the initiator to the responder and the application response message
flowing back from the responder to the initiator.  When signed receipts
are returned by each receiver of a MIME-EDI message, this results in
four e-mail messages flowing back and fourth between initiator and
responder on behalf of a single HL7 transaction.  To increase
efficiency, this recommendation defines a method by which an MDN receipt
and an HL7 response message can be bundled.  If the HL7 response message
is bundled with the MDN-receipt for the request message and if the
response message does not in turn request for an MDN receipt, the e-mail
traffic involved with one HL7 transaction can be reduced.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
|             ............                   ............              |
|             :I         :    HL7 request    :         R:              |
|             :N        [ ]------>(1)------>[ ]        E:              |
|             :I         :    MDN receipt    :         S:              |
|             :T        [ ]<------(2)<------[ ]        P:              |
|             :I         :        : :        :         O:              |
|             :A        [ ]<------(3)<------[ ]        N:              |
|             :T         :    HL7 response   :         D:              |
|             :O        [ ]------>(4)------>[ ]        E:              |
|             :R         :    MDN receipt    :         R:              |
|             ............                   ............              |
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 6: The normal HL7 transaction consists of two application layer
HL7 messages: request and response. The MDN receipt for the request
message can be bundled with the application layer HL7 response. The
second MDN receipt is normally not needed.


   To bundle MDN receipts and HL7 response messages, create a MIME
entity of type multipart/related as per RFC 1872.  This MIME media type
is used to send several MIME entities that relate to each other in a
defined manner.  The multipart/related requires one parameter type to
specify the kind of relationship.  For bundling an EDI response message
with the MDN receipt for the respective request message, you should



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specify the parameter type as application/x-EDI-response.  This
indicates that there are two body parts: The first body part is the MIME
encapsulated HL7 response message and the second body part is the MDN
receipt.

   For non-repudiation, a signature should be generated over the whole
multipart/related entity rather than signing each of its body parts
separately.  This implements all three kinds of non-repudiation:

1. Non-repudiation of receipt of the HL7 request message, provided that
   the Original-Message-ID and the Received-Content-MIC of the MDN
   receipt matches the request message.

2. Non-repudiation of origin of the HL7 response message, provided that
   1 is true and the signature on the multipart/related object is valid.

3. Non-repudiation of commitment of the HL7 transaction, provided that 1
   and 2 are true, the HL7 field MSA-1-acknowledgement-code in the
   response message indicates application acknowledgment (AA), and if
   the signature on the multipart/related entity authenticates the
   intended responder of the HL7 transaction.

   Note that for the ``legal event'' of non-repudiation of commitment to
occur without multipart/related it is required that the MSA-2-message-
control-ID of the response matches the MSH-10-message-control-ID of the
request.  However, this criterion is only reliable if truly unique HL7
message control IDs are issued.  Many existing HL7 applications do not
issue unique message control IDs, for these cases it is required that
the response be with multipart/related MIME entities.  The MDN part is
able to securely identify the request message with its Original-Message-
ID and the Received-Content-MIC fields.

   Obviously, the MDN receipt carries context information about the HL7
transaction that is currently negotiated by HL7 message exchange.  This
context information is valuable independently of any non-repudiation
issues, because it allows an EDI e-mail agent to relate request and
reply messages.  Maintaining this relationship is called ``transaction
tracking.''  A useful application of transaction tracking is an EDI e-
mail agent that translates asynchronous message passing to virtual
rendezvous communications.  Such an e-mail agent would block the
initiating process after having sent the request message until a
response message is received.

   It is, however, not yet clear whether the MDN will be the standard
way to perform EDI transaction tracking.  Other alternatives are to
define new header fields for transaction tracking in the application/edi
MIME media type.  Yet another alternative is to use RFC 822 headers from
the enclosing e-mail message, such as In-Reply-To.  For the time being,



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using the MDN is the only standard way to convey at least some
information about the transaction context of an EDI message and
therefore the MDN should accompany any EDI message that is sent on
behalf of some previously received EDI message.

   A multipart/related MIME entity of type application/x-EDI-response is
generated as follows:

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     (1)   Prepare a MIME encapsulated HL7 response message as        |
|           described in section 2.6.                                  |
|     (2)   Include the result of (1) as the first body part of a      |
|           multipart/related MIME entity with a type parameter set to |
|           ``application/x-EDI-response.''                            |
|   (2.1)   Select a boundary string <boundary>                        |
|   (2.2)   Prepend the result of (1) with the following lines:        |
|                                                                      |
|           Content-Type: multipart/related;                           |
|                         type="application/x-edi-response";           |
|                      boundary="<boundary>"                           |
|           Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit                            |
|                <blank line>                                          |
|           --<boundary>--                                             |
|                                                                      |
|   (2.3)   Append a blank line and an intermediary boundary           |
|           ``--<boundary>''                                           |
|     (3)   Prepare an MDN receipt as described in section 4.1.3 and   |
|           append it to the result of (2).                            |
|     (4)   Append a blank line and a terminal boundary                |
|           ``--<boundary>--''                                         |
|     (5)   The result of (4) is a complete MIME entity of type        |
|           multipart/related that ultimately carries an HL7 message.  |
|           Sign as described in section 4.1.1.                        |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

   The existence of the Disposition-Notification-To header and the
bundling of HL7 responses with the message disposition notification
raises the question to which destination a given pair of EDI response
message and MDN is to be sent.  There are a number of alternatives:

1. Determine the return address from application data such as
   MSH-3-sending-application and MSH-4-sending-facility found in the
   request message.

2. Use the address of the authenticated originator as determined from
   the signature.





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3. Use the address given in the header field Disposition-Notification-To
   as per RFC 2298 and EDIINT AS#1.

4. Use the e-mail addresses found in the RFC 822 header fields Reply-To,
   Return-Path, Sender, From.  See also the comment found in RFC 2076.

   It is reasonable to define a strategy of determining the return
address based on the above enumeration where the rules are listed from
highest to lowest precedence.  The problem is that different kinds of
return material should probably be sent to different recipients.  If all
response material is bundled, the decision will always be a tradeoff
between adhering to a particular standard and other considerations
regarding security or application layer processing rules.  The MDN
specification clearly states that an MDN be sent to the address
specified in the header field Disposition-Notification-To.  Application
layer consideration, however, would suggest replying to a recipient
based on the content of the EDI message.  Security considerations, in
turn, suggest sending sensitive information to authenticated addresses
only, as RFC 822 headers can be forged.  Finally, if some higher
precedence rule is not applicable because of missing information, the
strategy must fall back to a lower precedence rule.  Whatever strategy
is chosen, it must be clearly defined and documented.

4.2 MIME-PGP

4.2.1 Overview of PGP-Services

PGP services include digital envelope, signature, data compression and
certificates.  Data compression is relevant to security, because it
reduces the redundancy of the cleartext before encryption and thus makes
it harder to break the ciphertext.  Normally, PGP does encryption and
signature all in one step, however, this practice is not recommended in
HL7 communication with MIME.

   Output of the PGP programs can be binary or ASCII-armored.  The
ASCII-armor is essentially base 64 encoding with a leading
identification of the type of the PGP object.  When PGP objects are
encapsulated in MIME objects, one can use either the native ASCII-armor
with a 7-bit MIME encoding or binary PGP output with a base 64 MIME
encoding.  Other combinations are possible but not reasonable, only
binary PGP output with 7-bit, 8-bit or binary MIME encoding type is not
allowed.

   The PGP 2.6.3 program by Phil Zimmerman allows to automatically
canonicalize text before signing or encrypting it.  This PGP
canonicalization feature should not be used since the exact rules of
canonicalization are more complex (such as code-page transformation) and
are not specified in RFC 1991.  Thus, it is likely that signatures would



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differ between different implementation of PGP if canonicalization is
applied.  Only the simple canonicalization rule specified in section
4.1.1 must always be applied in this manner!

4.2.2 Digital Signature

PGP supports signed data and detached signatures.  The MIME Security
Multiparts specifications require detached signatures.  This is
practically useful if applications are involved in the communications
that cannot handle PGP signed data and that are not interested in
authentication, integrity, or non-repudiation of origin.  For example,
an HL7 message router might not need that level of security.

   A PGP signature is appended to the HL7 message as a MIME entity of
type application/pgp-signature as described in the following steps:

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     (1)   Prepare a MIME-HL7 entity as described in section 2.6.     |
|     (2)   Include the result of (1) as the first body part of a      |
|           multipart/signed MIME entity.                              |
|   (2.1)   Select a boundary string <boundary>                        |
|   (2.2)   Prepend the MIME-HL7 entity with the following lines:      |
|                                                                      |
|           Content-Type: multipart/signed;                            |
|                         protocol="application/pgp-signature";        |
|                      boundary="<boundary>"                           |
|           Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit                            |
|                <blank line>                                          |
|           --<boundary>                                               |
|                                                                      |
|   (2.3)   Append a blank line and an intermediary boundary           |
|           ``--<boundary>''                                           |
|     (3)   Process the result of (2) by PGP to yield an ASCII-armored |
|           detached signature.                                        |
|                     Remember-to-sign-canonical-text-only!-           |
|           (see section 4.1.1)                                        |
|     (4)   Include the output of (3) as the body of a MIME entity of  |
|           type application/pgp-signature.                            |
|   (4.1)   Prepend the PGP output with the following lines:           |
|                                                                      |
|           Content-Type: application/pgp-signature;                   |
|           Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit                            |
|                <blank line>                                          |
|                                                                      |
|     (5)   Include the output of (4) as the second body part of the   |
|           multipart/signed MIME entity that has been created in (2). |
|   (5.1)   Append the output of (4) at the output of (2).             |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+



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+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|   (5.2)   Append a blank line and a terminal boundary                |
|           ``--<boundary>--''                                         |
|     (6)   The result of (5) is a complete MIME entity of type        |
|           multipart/signed that ultimately carries an HL7 message.   |
|           You can proceed now by either of the following:            |
|   (6.1)   Prepend e-mail headers [RFC 822] and send the e-mail       |
|           message to the receiver,                                   |
|or (6.2)   Wrap it into a digital envelope as described in section    |
|           4.2.3.                                                     |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

4.2.3 Digital Envelope

A PGP encrypted message is appended as a MIME entity of type
application/octet-stream as the second body-part of a MIME Security
Multipart of type multipart/encrypted using the protocol
application/pgp-encrypted. Do not use combined PGP signature and
encryption. If you want a signature, make it an explicit
multipart/signed MIME entity as described in section 4.2.2.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     (1)   Prepare a MIME-HL7 entity as described in section 2.6.     |
|           Sign this entity as described in section 4.2.2.            |
|     (2)   Process the result of (1) by PGP to yield an ASCII-armored |
|           digital envelope.                                          |
|     (3)   Create a MIME entity of type multipart/encrypted.          |
|   (3.1)   Select a boundary string <boundary>                        |
|   (3.2)   Prepend the result of (2) with the following lines:        |
|                                                                      |
|           Content-Type: multipart/encrypted;                         |
|                         protocol="application/pgp-encrypted";        |
|                      boundary="<boundary>"                           |
|           Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit                            |
|                <blank line>                                          |
|           --<boundary>                                               |
|           Content-Type: application/pgp-encrypted                    |
|           Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit                            |
|                <blank line>                                          |
|           Version: 1                                                 |
|                <blank line>                                          |
|           --<boundary>                                               |
|                                                                      |
|   (3.3)   Append a blank line and a terminal boundary                |
|           ``--<boundary>--''                                         |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+





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+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     (4)   The result of (3) is a complete MIME entity of type        |
|           multipart/encrypted that ultimately carries an HL7         |
|           message.  Prepend e-mail headers [RFC 822] and send the e- |
|           mail message to the receiver.                              |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

4.2.4 Certificates

Before communications with PGP security can begin, all parties normally
exchange their public keys.  For most existing HL7 installations this is
a sufficient and remarkably easy way to start secure communications.  If
there is a lot of fluctuation within the group of communication
partners, it would be useful to also maintain the certificates at a
central repository.  Specifications and implementations for repositories
of PGP public keys do exist, although there is currently no standard for
this.

   If public keys are automatically retrievable from a repository, it is
important that they are signed by someone who is trusted to certify the
correctness of public keys.  This can be handled very flexibly, as not
everyone may trust in the same certifying person.  If a central
certification authority is required, this can be implemented with PGP as
easily.  Remember that the essence of a certification authority is not
that it delivers certificates using a special protocol (such as X.509),
but that it signs public keys and that this signature is trusted by
anyone within the realm of the certification authority.

4.3 S/MIME

S/MIME is based on the Public Key Cryptography Standard (PKCS) by RSA
Data Security, Inc.  PKCS is a security protocol suite based on ISO/OSI,
specified by ASN.1 notation and implemented using the Basic Encoding
Rules (BER) [X.209] and the Distinguished Encoding Rules (DER) [X.509].
The purpose of S/MIME is to integrate PKCS into a MIME structure.
However, S/MIME is not fully compliant to the MIME Security Multiparts
as it only obeys the multipart/signature specification.  For the digital
envelope, it uses a separate MIME media type application/pkcs7-mime.  In
this Recommendation, we deal with S/MIME only insofar as integration
into the framework of MIME Security Multiparts is concerned.  Readers
who want to learn more about S/MIME and PKCS should read the relevant
documents RFC2311 and PKCS #7.

4.3.1 Overview of PKCS-Services

PKCS services include digested data, enveloped data, signed data, signed
and enveloped data [PKCS #7], certificates [PKCS #6] and certificate
request to certification authorities [PKCS #10].  The digital envelope



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does not perform data compression prior to encryption.  There is yet no
standard way to compress MIME-EDI entities before encryption, however,
the EDIINT working group suggests using a header field named Content-
Encoding as per HTTP [RFC 2068].  This field would allow the
specification that the message contents are compressed with the
protocols gzip(1) 14.fM or compress(1) 15.fM PKCS #7 is a structure that
allows encryption and signature all in one step.  This practice,
however, is not permitted in HL7 communication with MIME.

   The PKCS standards use the BER and DER, which means that PKCS data is
binary and should be base64 encoded before being sent in an e-mail
message.  Canonicalization of MIME-EDI entities is still required in
order to have any data that is to be signed produce the same DER
encoding, regardless of the operating system.  Obviously, this is an
issue only for text data since binary data has no differences in
representation on different systems.

4.3.2 Digital Signature

PKCS #7 originally supports only signed data, but the S/MIME
specification defines a way to produce detached signatures.  For e-mail
communication, detached signatures are essential, since they are
required by the MIME Security Multipart specifications.  This is
practically useful if sites are involved in the communications who
cannot handle PKCS signed data and who are not interested in
authentication, integrity and non-repudiation of origin.  For example,
an HL7 message router might not need that level of security.

   To append a PKCS signature to the HL7 message as a MIME entity of
type application/pkcs7-signature, take the following steps:

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     (1)   Prepare a MIME-HL7 entity as described in section 2.6.     |
|     (2)   Include the result of (1) as the first body part of a      |
|           multipart/signed MIME entity.                              |
|   (2.1)   Select a boundary string <boundary>                        |
|   (2.2)   Prepend the MIME-HL7 entity with the following lines:      |
|                                                                      |
|           Content-Type: multipart/signed;                            |
|                         protocol="application/pkcs7-signature";      |
|                      boundary="<boundary>"                           |
|           Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit                            |
|                <blank line>                                          |
|           --<boundary>                                               |
|                                                                      |
|   (2.3)   Append a blank line and an intermediary boundary           |
|           ``--<boundary>''                                           |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+



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+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     (3)   Process the result of (2) to yield an S/MIME detached      |
|           signature.                                                 |
|                     Remember-to-sign-canonical-text-only!-           |
|           (see section 4.1.1)                                        |
|     (4)   Include the output of (3) as the body of a MIME entity of  |
|           type application/pkcs7-signature.                          |
|   (4.1)   Prepend the S/MIME output with the following lines:        |
|                                                                      |
|           Content-Type: application/pkcs7-signature;                 |
|           Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit                            |
|                <blank line>                                          |
|                                                                      |
|     (5)   Include the output of (4) as the second body part of the   |
|           multipart/signed MIME entity that has been created in (2). |
|   (5.1)   Append the output of (4) at the output of (2).             |
|   (5.2)   Append a blank line and a terminal boundary                |
|           ``--<boundary>--''                                         |
|     (6)   The result of (5) is a complete MIME entity of type        |
|           multipart/signed that ultimately carries an HL7 message.   |
|           You can proceed now by either of the following:            |
|   (6.1)   Prepend e-mail headers [RFC 822] and send the e-mail       |
|           message to the receiver,                                   |
|or (6.2)   Wrap it into a digital envelope as described in section    |
|           4.3.3.                                                     |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

4.3.3 Digital Envelope

The S/MIME specification of the digital envelope does not adhere to the
MIME Security Multiparts.  The PKCS #7 data is directly converted to a
single MIME entity of type application/pkcs7-mime.

   Do not use signed and enveloped data.  If you want a signature, make
it an explicit multipart/signed MIME entity as described in section
4.3.2, and then pack it into an application/pkcs7-mime entity:

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     (1)   Prepare a MIME-HL7 entity as described in section 2.6.     |
|           Sign this entity as described in section 4.3.2.            |
|     (2)   Process the result of (1) to yield a S/MIME                |
|           application/pkcs7-mime entity.                             |
|     (3)   The MIME entity resulting from (2) is at the same level as |
|           a multipart/encrypted.  It ultimately carries an HL7       |
|           message.  Prepend e-mail headers [RFC 822] and send the e- |
|           mail message to the receiver.                              |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+




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4.3.4 Certificates

Before communications with PKCS security can begin, all parties normally
have to register with a certification authority.  If there is no such
authority available, one needs to install a local certification
authority service based on PKCS #10 and X.509.  This approach can be
downsized to the point where each user runs his own certification
``authority'' where the decisions about which certificates are trusted
are completely up to the user.

5 A Detailed Example

This section gives a detailed example of an HL7 transaction over secure
e-mail.  It shows all relevant steps in building a secure e-mail from an
HL7 request message, the reverse process that is applied by the
responder to unwrap this HL7 message and the process of building and
decomposing the response e-mail message.  In order to show the relevant
aspects of canonicalization of text lines explained in section 4.1.1, we
assume that the initiating system is an MS-DOS PC using the end-of-line
sequence <CR><LF>, while the responding system is a UNIX system that
uses a single <LF> as the line terminator. Note that the HL7 segment
terminator always is the simple <CR>. In this example, the PGP suite of
security protocols is used.

   The first step is the generation of the HL7 request message according
to the rules of the application program.  Suppose, for example, Dr.
Schadow wants to send a new lab order message to the clinical laboratory
department of Tucker General Hospital.  The message requests several
blood parameters related to the thyroid gland.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|MSH|^~\&|OE|DR.SCHADOW|LAB|TUCKER-GENERAL|...||ORM|RQ-O01-01|P|2.2<CR>|
|PID|||08157411||Doe^John||19690219|M|<CR>                             |
|PV1||O|||||0123^SCHADOW^GUNTHER||||||||||||12|<CR>                    |
|ORC|NW|12345|||F|<CR>                                                 |
|OBR||12345||||||19971226175948||7^ML||||||BLDV<CR>                    |
|ORC|CH|12345-1|||F||12345|<CR>                                        |
|OBR||12345-1|||5383-5^THYROID MICROSOMAL AB^LN|<CR>                   |
|ORC|CH|12345-2|||F||12345|<CR>                                        |
|OBR||12345-2|||5381-9^THYREOGLOBULIN AB^LN|<CR>                       |
|ORC|CH|12345-3|||F||12345|<CR>                                        |
|OBR||12345-3|||5385-0^THYREOTROPIN RECEPTOR AB^LN|<CR>                |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+


   According to section 2.6, this message is to be wrapped into a MIME-
EDI [RFC 1767] entity.  The readability of this example suggests using
quoted-printable transfer encoding rather than base64.  Note that the



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native text lines of Dr Schadow's order entry systems are terminated by
the sequence <CR><LF>.  Note that in quoted printable encoding, the HL7
segment terminator <CR> is transformed into the sequence ``=0D''.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Content-Type: application/edi-hl7<CR><LF>                             |
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable<CR><LF>                   |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|MSH|^~\&|OE|DR.SCHADOW|LAB|TUCKER-GENERAL|19971226175948||ORM=<CR><LF>|
||RQ-O01-001|P|2.2=0DPID|||08157411||Doe^John||19690219|M|=0DP=<CR><LF>|
|ID|||08157411||Doe^John||19690219|M|=0DPV1||O|||||0123^SCHADO=<CR><LF>|
|W^GUNTHER||||||||||||12|=0DORC|NW|12345|||F|=0DOBR||12345||||=<CR><LF>|
|||19971226175948||7^ML||||||BLDV=0DORC|CH|12345-1|||F||12345|=<CR><LF>|
|=0DOBR||12345-1|||5383-5^THYROID MICROSOMAL AB^LN|=0DORC|CH|1=<CR><LF>|
|2345-2|||F||12345|=0DOBR||12345-2|||5381-9^THYREOGLOBULIN AB^=<CR><LF>|
|LN|=0DORC|CH|12345-3|||F||12345|=0DOBR||12345-3|||5385-0^THYR=<CR><LF>|
|EOTROPIN RECEPTOR AB^LN|=0D                                           |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+


   As a next step, the message shall be signed. A signature must be
calculated over canonical text. All native line terminators must be
translated to <CR><LF>. Since in this example system the line endings
are already in canonical form, no special translation step is required
here.  The signature is calculated over the MIME-EDI entity shown in the
box above.  The output of PGP is attached as the second body part of the
multipart/signed MIME entity as described in section 4.2.2.


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Content-Type: multipart/signed;<CR><LF>                               |
|   protocol="application/pgp-signature"<CR><LF>                       |
|   micalg="pgp-md5"; boundary="sigbound"<CR><LF>                      |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--sigbound<CR><LF>                                                    |
|Content-Type: application/edi-hl7<CR><LF>                             |
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable<CR><LF>                   |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|MSH|^~\&|OE|DR.SCHADOW|LAB|TUCKER-GENERAL|19971226175948||OR=<CR><LF> |
|M|RQ-O01-001|P|2.2=0DPID|||08157411||Doe^John||19690219|M|=<CR><LF>   |
|=0DPID|||08157411||Doe^John||19690219|M|=0DPV1||O|||||0123^S=<CR><LF> |
|CHADOW^GUNTHER||||||||||||12|=0DORC|NW|12345|||F|=0DOBR||123=<CR><LF> |
|45||||||19971226175948||7^ML||||||BLDV=0DORC|CH|12345-1|||F|=<CR><LF> |
||12345|=0DOBR||12345-1|||5383-5^THYROID MICROSOMAL AB^LN|=0D=<CR><LF> |
|ORC|CH|12345-2|||F||12345|=0DOBR||12345-2|||5381-9^THYREOGLO=<CR><LF> |
|BULIN AB^LN|=0DORC|CH|12345-3|||F||12345|=0DOBR||12345-3|||5=<CR><LF> |
|385-0^THYREOTROPIN RECEPTOR AB^LN|=0D<CR><LF                          |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+



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+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--sigbound<CR><LF>                                                    |
|Content-Type: application/pgp-signature<CR><LF>                       |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----<CR><LF>                                   |
|Version: 2.6.3ia<CR><LF>                                              |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|iQBVAwUANKPor3g+w2PflLsNAQH/iwIAnqYzaL0qs2hqItqniL1D3jpf3+9ku<CR><LF> |
|u6w5URl9G3KM9s6GzgtY0VgUCpO/gkToG3iRYLjhuKjmI2mJV76ItZMA==<CR><LF>    |
|=52tL<CR><LF>                                                         |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|-----END PGP MESSAGE-----<CR><LF>                                     |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--sigbound--<CR><LF>                                                  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

   The next step is to wrap the signed material above into a digital
envelope.  Note that the digital envelope can only be deciphered by the
dedicated recipients of the message.


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Content-Type: multipart/encrypted;<CR><LF>                            |
|   boundary="encbound"; protocol="application/pgp-encrypted"<CR><LF>  |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--encbound<CR><LF>                                                    |
|Content-Type: application/pgp-encrypted<CR><LF>                       |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|Version: 1 <CR><LF>                                                   |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--encbound<CR><LF>                                                    |
|Content-Type: application/octet-stream<CR><LF>                        |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----<CR><LF>                                   |
|Version: 2.6.3ia<CR><LF>                                              |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|hEwDp7HUcMTu8A0BAf47c+gxPvgY90sbNmXK67p5AC0OjJ8ZYrSMJLmo6UTUU<CR><LF> |
|SyjikhDVjXSlaRK5L+rW8AzAbTcuJ3wA3y3wFrF+pgAAA/FHZhtIG/bSb0I8F<CR><LF> |
|YHK+rXFVL6zMGiVnJlrqcyHnaqQyxgAAhXwFNZODjEfuAxX5R6QzYPLZJiCAf<CR><LF> |
|9yGgHyW43qd0OqSZ1yjIazgS4JYXreRkkGvnKKI+gAHG9l9AuTqI384aKYZOX<CR><LF> |
|eIoDAOEJCVVeXiTAW4/AxZhinQDYmaLPSCExKZRx0qvFv8L5kX5VlgJ6e0MCc<CR><LF> |
|2b/K9guTM9dL0O7xyoQd5FDDwZja6mauhboGEsRzKHrpcyrgxNFL80/vLTnP5<CR><LF> |
|TtBMc7vW6xRpW2l7NDVwpXQGi3zJU+zybRekOVg34xNcMjO/yZwfopmiCax41<CR><LF> |
|KZu9ZW4Y2T3vkAKR6njbqvx7Y6ME6u+G+fd2wYVeCi3oI8t913ZAxn6MkO+dg<CR><LF> |
|oA4ehfdFrpSLNgSVQsgdxaS28Ew6Xuc6S4c9IVjI4xBYlo0XKzU8i5yZardXJ<CR><LF> |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+



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+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|hvD3o2Tm6BNCC8o3ODKTyfzbt0XamBr7oM4UfCTb29m90paxUuIonD8NWSl9H<CR><LF> |
|RCtS8ZWjlWYjMoDyDZ2ssFG0X46LVhHBSp3HR5gmhtaamTqhEG+0b/HRkc98A<CR><LF> |
|QysGFMIeZdw6SUilMHl0Vx7yZ+qimFRHVVYJVxKOCZ6weEzORdukB4rLOZNVL<CR><LF> |
|AO4lrDm6gMewehQ7nCTpaJuG1LrifeagcKAZqdQe5DkwnQRuEbh0ed1ivbVd5<CR><LF> |
|cFTQiT5LG2i4G5Bu676WhIHoQXmBaMBlX1FaJddxdfIHoFL2J9RcfNwCka7YW<CR><LF> |
|hTGNM8PT5VSoW1Wd56BCQaOmySSaJ6C/HhGVoEQbcIElwWLiHqlGAMITlHwk8<CR><LF> |
|UwI7mLBNugG5Z8QPfQAYlG5cSw3rwFQkfMo1GAYSQAcWK4vLZxhk84ar2jZc1<CR><LF> |
|gdr0reXxZaso3PCchJMJ8CIPN771J64JtBRi4N2sbD5V8saPoyzTgvPVYkESs<CR><LF> |
|n+hPovIK8d/rgGNJ/WH0EXOALzmrdqmt+M2BD5einlgG9o43<CR><LF>              |
|=q5P+<CR><LF>                                                         |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|-----END PGP MESSAGE-----<CR><LF>                                     |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--encbound--<CR><LF>                                                  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

   This MIME entity is now prepended by RFC 822 e-mail headers and sent
to the lab.  The following box shows the message as received by the lab.
Note that the laboratory information system runs on a different
operating system that uses UNIX-style line terminators <LF>.


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Received: (from oe@schadow.practice.net) by edi.practice.net <LF>     |
|   id SAA01629; Fri, 26 Dec 1997 18:26:06 +0100<LF>                   |
|Date: Fri, 26 Dec 1997 18:26:06 +0100<LF>                             |
|From: oe@schadow.practice.net<LF>                                     |
|To: lab@tucker-general.edu<LF>                                        |
|Message-Id: <edi883157166.1607@schadow.practice.net><LF>              |
|Subject: New order<LF>                                                |
|MIME-Version: 1.0<LF>                                                 |
|Disposition-Notification-To: oe@schadow.practice.net<LF>              |
|Disposition-Notification-Options:<LF>                                 |
|   signed-receipt-protocol=0,application/pgp-signature;<LF>           |
|   signed-receipt-micalg=0,pgp-md5<LF>                                |
|Content-Type: multipart/encrypted;<LF>                                |
|   boundary="encbound"; protocol="application/pgp-encrypted"<LF>      |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--encbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: application/pgp-encrypted<LF>                           |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|Version: 1 <LF>                                                       |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--encbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: application/octet-stream<LF>                            |
|<LF>                                                                  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+



Schadow, Tucker, Rishel                                FORMFEED[Page 49]


Secure HL7 Transactions using Internet Mail                July 21, 1998


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----<LF>                                       |
|Version: 2.6.3ia<LF>                                                  |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|hEwDp7HUcMTu8A0BAf47c+gxPvgY90sbNmXK67p5AC0OjJ8ZYrSMJLmo6UTUUxXf<LF>  |
|SyjikhDVjXSlaRK5L+rW8AzAbTcuJ3wA3y3wFrF+pgAAA/FHZhtIG/bSb0I8FbUN<LF>  |
|YHK+rXFVL6zMGiVnJlrqcyHnaqQyxgAAhXwFNZODjEfuAxX5R6QzYPLZJiCAf5KR<LF>  |
|9yGgHyW43qd0OqSZ1yjIazgS4JYXreRkkGvnKKI+gAHG9l9AuTqI384aKYZOXdQN<LF>  |
|eIoDAOEJCVVeXiTAW4/AxZhinQDYmaLPSCExKZRx0qvFv8L5kX5VlgJ6e0MCc4VS<LF>  |
|2b/K9guTM9dL0O7xyoQd5FDDwZja6mauhboGEsRzKHrpcyrgxNFL80/vLTnP5iTV<LF>  |
|yTOwBVQ3Oc6Nr08u+3Ubl/BLzFEifnLrqRZgSlLUWgZsrR7vV7SDnVqsYoyyH6U4<LF>  |
|w1sVk6TwooG6Y0oIo0tzo9cInW9CoWm8yt5oocgYwQnboHI9KR+BlHczdGNbfvtC<LF>  |
|SNLDzQkAwSC5jlL42pzVF1vkD9IUhDRJkkwKAGJYe488w4lKCrBeWbx7gRMzgCv3<LF>  |
|UwI7mLBNugG5Z8QPfQAYlG5cSw3rwFQkfMo1GAYSQAcWK4vLZxhk84ar2jZc1H46<LF>  |
|gdr0reXxZaso3PCchJMJ8CIPN771J64JtBRi4N2sbD5V8saPoyzTgvPVYkESsS/T<LF>  |
|n+hPovIK8d/rgGNJ/WH0EXOALzmrdqmt+M2BD5einlgG9o43<LF>                  |
|=q5P+<LF>                                                             |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|-----END PGP MESSAGE-----<LF>                                         |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--encbound--<LF>                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

   The laboratory unwraps the message from the digital envelope to yield
the multipart/signed MIME entity.


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Content-Type: multipart/signed;<LF>                                   |
|   protocol="application/pgp-signature";<LF>                          |
|   micalg="pgp-md5"; boundary="sigbound"<LF>                          |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--sigbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: application/edi-hl7<LF>                                 |
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable<LF>                       |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|MSH|^~\&|OE|DR.SCHADOW|LAB|TUCKER-GENERAL|19971226175948||ORM=<LF>    |
||RQ-O01-001|P|2.2=0DPID|||08157411||Doe^John||19690219|M|=0DP=<LF>    |
|ID|||08157411||Doe^John||19690219|M|=0DPV1||O|||||0123^SCHADO=<LF>    |
|W^GUNTHER||||||||||||12|=0DORC|NW|12345|||F|=0DOBR||12345||||=<LF>    |
|||19971226175948||7^ML||||||BLDV=0DORC|CH|12345-1|||F||12345|=<LF>    |
|=0DOBR||12345-1|||5383-5^THYROID MICROSOMAL AB^LN|=0DORC|CH|1=<LF>    |
|2345-2|||F||12345|=0DOBR||12345-2|||5381-9^THYREOGLOBULIN AB^=<LF>    |
|LN|=0DORC|CH|12345-3|||F||12345|=0DOBR||12345-3|||5385-0^THYR=<LF>    |
|EOTROPIN RECEPTOR AB^LN|=0D                                           |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--sigbound<LF>                                                        |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+



Schadow, Tucker, Rishel                                FORMFEED[Page 50]


Secure HL7 Transactions using Internet Mail                July 21, 1998


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Content-Type: application/pgp-signature<LF>                           |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----<LF>                                       |
|Version: 2.6.3ia<LF>                                                  |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|iQBVAwUANKPor3g+w2PflLsNAQH/iwIAnqYzaL0qs2hqItqniL1D3jpf3+9kuAu6<LF>  |
|w5URl9G3KM9s6GzgtY0VgUCpO/gkToG3iRYLjhuKjmI2mJV76ItZMA==<LF>          |
|=52tL<LF>                                                             |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|-----END PGP MESSAGE-----<LF>                                         |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--sigbound--<LF>                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

   The signature must be validated over the message text, in order to
ensure that the message is authentic.  When the authenticity is
successfully validated, the data above can be stored into a non-
repudiation log (see also section 3.2.2.4).  For validation of the
signature, the MIME-EDI entity must be transformed into canonical form
of line terminators.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Content-Type: application/edi-hl7<CR><LF>                             |
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable<CR><LF>                   |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|MSH|^~\&|OE|DR.SCHADOW|LAB|TUCKER-GENERAL|19971226175948||ORM=<CR><LF>|
||RQ-O01-001|P|2.2=0DPID|||08157411||Doe^John||19690219|M|=0DP=<CR><LF>|
|ID|||08157411||Doe^John||19690219|M|=0DPV1||O|||||0123^SCHADO=<CR><LF>|
|W^GUNTHER||||||||||||12|=0DORC|NW|12345|||F|=0DOBR||12345||||=<CR><LF>|
|||19971226175948||7^ML||||||BLDV=0DORC|CH|12345-1|||F||12345|=<CR><LF>|
|=0DOBR||12345-1|||5383-5^THYROID MICROSOMAL AB^LN|=0DORC|CH|1=<CR><LF>|
|2345-2|||F||12345|=0DOBR||12345-2|||5381-9^THYREOGLOBULIN AB^=<CR><LF>|
|LN|=0DORC|CH|12345-3|||F||12345|=0DOBR||12345-3|||5385-0^THYR=<CR><LF>|
|EOTROPIN RECEPTOR AB^LN|=0D                                           |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+


   After the HL7 message has been unwrapped from the MIME-EDI container,
it is fed to the HL7 application of the laboratory information system,
which generates the reply shown in the following box.










Schadow, Tucker, Rishel                                FORMFEED[Page 51]


Secure HL7 Transactions using Internet Mail                July 21, 1998

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|MSH|^~\&|LAB|TUCKER-GENERAL|OE|DR.SCHADOW|...|ORR|RP-O01-831|P|2.2<CR>|
|MSA|AA|RQ-O01-001|ORDER ACCEPTED|<CR>                                 |
|PID||47110815|08157411||Doe^John||||<CR>                              |
|PV1||O|||||0123^SCHADOW^GUNTHER||||||||||||12|<CR>                    |
|ORC|OK|12345|54321||SC<CR>                                            |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+


   The HL7 application also signals to the e-mail agent that the
processing was successful.  This information is reflected in the
disposition notification status of processed.  For the generation of a
complete message disposition notification, described in section 4.1.3,
we need to calculate a message integrity check over the same text that
was subject to signature by the initiator.  The message integrity check
must be calculated over the same canonical text as was subject to
signature validation. The MDN receipt that we create is shown next.


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Content-Type: multipart/report;<LF>                                   |
|   report-type="disposition-notification";<LF>                        |
|   boundary="repbound"<LF>                                            |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--repbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: text/plain<LF>                                          |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|your message has been processed<LF>                                   |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--repbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: message/disposition-notification<LF>                    |
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit<LF>                                   |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|Reporting-UA: lab.tucker-general.edu; EDISend v1.0<LF>                |
|Final-Recipient: rfc822;request@lab.tucker-general.edu<LF>            |
|Original-Message-Id: <edi883157166.1607@schadow.practice.net><LF>     |
|Disposition: automatic-action/MDN-sent-automatically; processed<LF>   |
|Received-content-MIC: 54ee0a959b7a92fdbe766538c948dbfeccdeb2,sha1<LF> |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--repbound--<LF>                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

   The MDN receipt above is bundled with the HL7 application-level
response message in a special multipart/related MIME entity as explained
in section 4.1.4.  Again, the HL7 message has been wrapped into a MIME-
EDI container with quoted-printable transfer encoding.






Schadow, Tucker, Rishel                                FORMFEED[Page 52]


Secure HL7 Transactions using Internet Mail                July 21, 1998


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Content-Type: multipart/related;<LF>                                  |
|   type="application/x-edi-response";<LF>                             |
|   boundary="relbound"<LF>                                            |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--relbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: application/edi-hl7<LF>                                 |
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable<LF>                       |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|MSH|^~\&|LAB|TUCKER-GENERAL|OE|DR.SCHADOW|19971226182611||O=<LF>      |
|RR|RP-O01-883157170|P|2.2=0DMSA|AA|RQ-O01-001|ORDER ACCEPTE=<LF>      |
|D|=0DPID||47110815|08157411||Doe^John||||=0DPV1||O|||||0123=<LF>      |
|^SCHADOW^GUNTHER||||||||||||12|=0DORC|OK|12345|54321||SC=0D=<LF>      |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--relbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: multipart/report;<LF>                                   |
|   report-type="disposition-notification";<LF>                        |
|   boundary="repbound"<LF>                                            |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--repbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: text/plain<LF>                                          |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|your message has been processed<LF>                                   |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--repbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: message/disposition-notification<LF>                    |
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit<LF>                                   |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|Reporting-UA: lab.tucker-general.edu; EDISend v1.0<LF>                |
|Final-Recipient: rfc822;request@lab.tucker-general.edu<LF>            |
|Original-Message-Id: <edi883157166.1607@schadow.practice.net><LF>     |
|Disposition: automatic-action/MDN-sent-automatically; processed<LF>   |
|Received-content-MIC: 54ee0a959b7a92fdbe766538c948dbfeccdeb2,sha1<LF> |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--repbound--<LF>                                                      |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--relbound--<LF>                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

   The signature that is applied over the bundle of MDN receipt and HL7
response performs non-repudiation of receipt of the HL7 request message,
non-repudiation of origin of the HL7 reply message, and non-repudiation
of commitment to the transaction implied by the given pair of HL7
messages.  In this case, the laboratory system committed itself to fill
all ordered tests at some time after the specimen has been received.  A
digital signature, again, must be calculated over canonical text.  This
time the line terminators must be explicitly translated to canonical
form.



Schadow, Tucker, Rishel                                FORMFEED[Page 53]


Secure HL7 Transactions using Internet Mail                July 21, 1998


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Content-Type: multipart/related;<CR><LF>                              |
|   type="application/x-edi-response";<CR><LF>                         |
|   boundary="relbound"<CR><LF>                                        |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--relbound<CR><LF>                                                    |
|Content-Type: application/edi-hl7<CR><LF>                             |
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable<CR><LF>                   |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|MSH|^~\&|LAB|TUCKER-GENERAL|OE|DR.SCHADOW|19971226182611||O=<CR><LF>  |
|RR|RP-O01-883157170|P|2.2=0DMSA|AA|RQ-O01-001|ORDER ACCEPTE=<CR><LF>  |
|D|=0DPID||47110815|08157411||Doe^John||||=0DPV1||O|||||0123=<CR><LF>  |
|^SCHADOW^GUNTHER||||||||||||12|=0DORC|OK|12345|54321||SC=0D=<CR><LF>  |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--relbound<CR><LF>                                                    |
|Content-Type: multipart/report;<CR><LF>                               |
|   report-type="disposition-notification";<CR><LF>                    |
|   boundary="repbound"<CR><LF>                                        |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--repbound<CR><LF>                                                    |
|Content-Type: text/plain<CR><LF>                                      |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|your message has been processed<CR><LF>                               |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--repbound<CR><LF>                                                    |
|Content-Type: message/disposition-notification<CR><LF>                |
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit<CR><LF>                               |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|Reporting-UA: lab.tucker-general.edu; EDISend v1.0<CR><LF>            |
|Final-Recipient: rfc822;request@lab.tucker-general.edu<CR><LF>        |
|Original-Message-Id: <edi883157166.1607@schadow.practice.net><CR><LF> |
|Disposition: automatic-action/MDN-sent-automatically;<CR><LF>         |
|   processed<CR><LF>                                                  |
|Received-content-MIC: 54ee0a959b7a92fdbe766538c948dbfecc,sha1<CR><LF> |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--repbound--<CR><LF>                                                  |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--relbound--<CR><LF>                                                  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

   The response and its signature are packed into a multipart/signed
MIME entity.


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Content-Type: multipart/signed;<LF>                                   |
|   protocol="application/pgp-signature";<LF>                          |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+



Schadow, Tucker, Rishel                                FORMFEED[Page 54]


Secure HL7 Transactions using Internet Mail                July 21, 1998


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|   micalg="pgp-md5"; boundary="sigbound"<LF>                          |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--sigbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: multipart/related;<LF>                                  |
|   type="application/x-edi-response";<LF>                             |
|   boundary="relbound"<LF>                                            |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--relbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: application/edi-hl7<LF>                                 |
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable<LF>                       |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|MSH|^~\&|LAB|TUCKER-GENERAL|OE|DR.SCHADOW|19971226182611||O=<LF>      |
|RR|RP-O01-883157170|P|2.2=0DMSA|AA|RQ-O01-001|ORDER ACCEPTE=<LF>      |
|D|=0DPID||47110815|08157411||Doe^John||||=0DPV1||O|||||0123=<LF>      |
|^SCHADOW^GUNTHER||||||||||||12|=0DORC|OK|12345|54321||SC=0D=<LF>      |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--relbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: multipart/report;<LF>                                   |
|   report-type="disposition-notification";<LF>                        |
|   boundary="repbound"<LF>                                            |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--repbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: text/plain<LF>                                          |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|your message has been processed<LF>                                   |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--repbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: message/disposition-notification<LF>                    |
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit<LF>                                   |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|Reporting-UA: lab.tucker-general.edu; EDISend v1.0<LF>                |
|Final-Recipient: rfc822;request@lab.tucker-general.edu<LF>            |
|Original-Message-Id: <edi883157166.1607@schadow.practice.net><LF>     |
|Disposition: automatic-action/MDN-sent-automatically; processed<LF>   |
|Received-content-MIC: 54ee0a959b7a92fdbe766538c948dbfeccdeb2,sha1<LF> |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--repbound--<LF>                                                      |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--relbound--<LF>                                                      |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--sigbound<LF>                                                        |
|Content-Type: application/pgp-signature<LF>                           |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----<LF>                                       |
|Version: 2.6.3ia<LF>                                                  |
|<LF>                                                                  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+



Schadow, Tucker, Rishel                                FORMFEED[Page 55]


Secure HL7 Transactions using Internet Mail                July 21, 1998


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|iQBVAwUANKPotKex1HDE7vANAQFYtgH9EZA4gWleqqZYUhTVsoLcYtykALNKCkqW<LF>  |
|nCYsPbnL43YSnuL0dWEavfoWT9i08QtzAVM+73Lhxm4bqJNjY+F/oA==<LF>          |
|=ldjq<LF>                                                             |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|-----END PGP MESSAGE-----<LF>                                         |
|<LF>                                                                  |
|--sigbound--<LF>                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

   Finally the signed response is encrypted and sent as an RFC 822 e-
mail message back to the authenticated sender of the request message.


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|From: lab@tucker-general.edu<CR><LF>                                  |
|To: oe@schadow.practice.net<CR><LF>                                   |
|Date: Fri, 26 Dec 1997 18:26:11 +0100<CR><LF>                         |
|Message-Id: <edi883157171.1837@lab.tucker-general.edu><CR><LF>        |
|In-Reply-To: <edi883157166.1607@schadow.practice.net><CR><LF>         |
|Subject: Re: New order<CR><LF>                                        |
|MIME-Version: 1.0<CR><LF>                                             |
|Content-Type: multipart/encrypted; boundary="encbound";<CR><LF>       |
|   protocol="application/pgp-encrypted"<CR><LF>                       |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--encbound<CR><LF>                                                    |
|Content-Type: application/pgp-encrypted<CR><LF>                       |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|Version: 1 <CR><LF>                                                   |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--encbound<CR><LF>                                                    |
|Content-Type: application/octet-stream<CR><LF>                        |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----<CR><LF>                                   |
|Version: 2.6.3ia<CR><LF>                                              |
|hEwDeD7DY9+Uuw0BAf0eLhV0xFGF9EQbe1OtcqnZQGWXhOEw+/8ibnHQ2BGHa<CR><LF> |
|zEsazOmBOiyf+gGm79ISQY83rZkZ0McHn4Yne72cpgAABdnTCq9qY6XrA1vmt<CR><LF> |
|HQT3WS5qU7aMSFcKusfVUmkW2Cy/RZrJBqV9bKuH2n3i01OcIBQVbHdUC01uH<CR><LF> |
|nvmn/J7tktA9b0W5yAWLaGbCufsyaZxJyS7e7JooAzrYx5Y229Lhgtykb9r2V<CR><LF> |
|GAqvd/qgN2ZPvDhkyfh0p58bHv+ePQqVB979GMLblagOUdp6XtBtl3uDD8h73<CR><LF> |
|FgHpnP88M+U6AJReTgQAe01DKmUD4NaKxkZyPuHi9V/GCZdkCBZGOzBae2g3a<CR><LF> |
|fSo2aNqgjHGieF8CfJCHcMZKFgq8XNURQhAl+zcU02DpdH/aOnqWO3fPo5gCf<CR><LF> |
|cb3Nthm9vLIsQRA78TJAsxbKv8TVBQChutzDm19qdWemR5lmUIjheKEINd9nn<CR><LF> |
|HQ3oP0PC1PCNxJ7FWgUMxE3xZ6AaAC12YVSg14br6CFdCaDOA55flnNiLvdoC<CR><LF> |
|Llxi3UBsBGtaSfTsF5gtgumlV3xPpaS02c3sl7Mc7xcQkrg33smTkx3nhQDXs<CR><LF> |
|u4Ed1X67OOMTGVSbI5cGC1CYOI867ogI2B7Z0U274oQNH71xWchSHfbLwu7z9<CR><LF> |
|wYnVZQLbb2ncmBArcPoCnIznfQ7COnmPwkFHNTNV55Cif12JxZXdQyEnDbMnK<CR><LF> |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+



Schadow, Tucker, Rishel                                FORMFEED[Page 56]


Secure HL7 Transactions using Internet Mail                July 21, 1998


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Deyq6pHzaguq3PKxKt37aQtK1QSvhwBvcO4SMH5zJU/OR1R2Z+9ZpIeFoh79e<CR><LF> |
|LJZ60VAOuQ/lzejE8EI8R2Bcm9/GPRtCH6+CIEC2xgW/JfvyOtGcWUhVHrwGz<CR><LF> |
|jatqBGdqxyampHcGgnB1hPQVfhRzoI0jPdeEC5MBzD2feoTOj97MhGbx2oT8s<CR><LF> |
|FArMifectOLqayU3ELjGOdG6KvEc2sv68xeCv481yj3AoK6V3tvRJyukSaUXD<CR><LF> |
|yHUusUPyoZ4FTNjaXvHwEUmDkphT5XwithhKtr38id6eG+XubJMd1vKRbbsu5<CR><LF> |
|90y+kGINWpAozwJY79Hf4v5dIMkTVYJdTRvTQgeMhkytSmbc4ONr40FLfcyCV<CR><LF> |
|tAYpLqVTsnLMblwPnS0qVNSZi72UD7G/1Lf2dpXzUh8PrNTbAWbMCeB/xrifC<CR><LF> |
|wAGjAEqRxFJKFwl2IHgoewEM/Yxt9L0DuPdB/ow8kF301p80iHZ1NL0V4lM=<CR><LF>  |
|=wyMm<CR><LF>                                                         |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|-----END PGP MESSAGE-----<CR><LF>                                     |
|<CR><LF>                                                              |
|--encbound--<CR><LF>                                                  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

   Back at Dr. Schadow's order entry system, this message is decrypted
and checked for authenticity.  Then the disposition status is examined
(section 4.1.3) and validated that the Received-content-MIC matches the
originally sent request message.  Finally, the HL7 response is consumed
by the order entry application to validate if the order was accepted in
all parts.

6 Architectural and Operational Considerations

   The previous sections provide a roadmap of the relevant Internet
standards, background information on encryption and the MIME e-mail
formats, and detailed specifications of messages and how their content
should be created.  They are directed towards the implementers of the e-
mail handling programs.  This section examines a series of operational
and architectural issues.  It illustrates how the pieces can be fit
together with existing TCP/IP based HL7 applications routers and
firewalls.  It further shows one way to provide the journalizing
function necessary to disprove attempts to repudiate the sending and
processing of a message.  It discusses some specific issues in HL7
transaction design that are related to the e-mail medium.  Finally, it
touches on issues in negotiating interfaces when the sending and
receiving systems are not operated by the same organization.

   This section is not normative; its purpose is simply to illuminate
issues that must be considered in applying the material of the previous
section.

6.1 Process Structure of the E-mail Handling Machine

In this architectural model, the e-mail handling software will run on a
designated machine for an institution.  Incoming EDI e-mail messages
will be directed to that machine.  Processes on that machine will decode



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the e-mail, recover the original HL7 message, and then transmit via
TCP/IP to pre-existing HL7 applications that expect conventional TCP
communication.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
|                        ..................................            |
|                        :sendmail  ; MIME       ward@... :            |
|             ( )------>[ ]------->( )content             :            |
|            e-mail      :    .;    |                     :            |
|                        :   ;      | HL7email            :            |
|                        :  ;       V handler    HL7      :            |
|                        : ;   o<--[ ]------->( )payload  :            |
|                        :;    |    A          |          :            |
|                        :     V    |          |          :            |
|                        : PGP[ ]-->o          V HL7      :            |
|                        :                    [ ]processor:            |
|                        ..................................            |
|                        edi@yourhospital.com                          |
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 7: Directing incoming e-mail to a program that processes HL7
messages.


   Under the Unix operating system, e-mail arriving at a machine is
handled by an SMTP server (normally a process named sendmail) listening
on a well-known port.  Sendmail examines the incoming mail, and if the
address is local, it attempts to deliver it.  Normally, sendmail appends
it to the user's mailbox file, where the user's e-mail reading software
will deal with it.  However, it is possible to have sendmail process
certain e-mail addresses through a program, instead of sending it to a
mailbox.

   Consider the example depicted in figure 7.  An encrypted EDI message
arrives by e-mail addressed to ward@edi.yourhospital.com.  The sending
application created an HL7 message (aPayload.hl7) and constructed a MIME
format e-mail message.  The e-mail message arrived at the e-mail handing
machine, edi.yourhospital.com addressed to ward@edi.yourhospital.com. On
Unix systems, someone will have made an entry in the file /etc/aliases
to inform sendmail that mail to the ``user'' ward should be piped to the
program HL7emailhandler with arguments ``-u ward -.'' The special e-mail
handling process HL7emailhandler will be told to use the passwords
associated with the facility named ward, and to read the actual e-mail
message from standard input.




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   HL7emailhandler will take the MIME formatted message, parse it
according to the MIME specifications, and extract an encoded data file.
HL7emailhandler will then call on external encryption programs such as
pgp to decrypt the message, yielding a clear text message in pure HL7
format, here denoted as the file aPayload.hl7.  It then passes this pure
HL7 message to the rest of the HL7 processing machinery as a regular HL7
message.

   The figure also shows that one can use standard distributions of
encryption software (such as PGP), and that one can constrain the
security of the private keys to the one machine that handles e-mail
(edi.yourhospital.com). In this case, the file
/usr/ward/.pgp/secring.pgp contains the secret key for your institution.
The secret key file is not itself usable by interlopers since the key
itself is encrypted with a somewhat short passphrase, but access to this
file should nonetheless be protected.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
|            ( )-------------+                                         |
|           email            |                                         |
|                            V gatekeeper.yourhospital.com             |
|                       ####[G]#############################           |
|                       #    |                             #           |
|                       #    |        .................... #           |
|                       #    V        :    ;             : #           |
|                       #   ( )----->[ ]..;     ward@... : #           |
|                       # email       :  ;               : #           |
|                       #             : ;                : #           |
|                       #             :;                 : #           |
|                       #             :................... #           |
|                       #             edi@yourhospital.com #           |
|                       #FIREWALL                          #           |
|                       ####################################           |
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 8: HL7 using e-mail can pass a firewall through a gatekeeping
router. The gatekeeper needs not unwrap the message from its protecting
envelope.


   Firewall systems are an important part of the security measures in
place in most sites.  They serve as the only link between the systems on
the Local Area Network (LAN) and the Internet at large.  They shield the
interior systems from most attacks by outsiders trying to retrieve or
alter information.  Figure 8 shows that EDI e-mail is no more



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constrained by firewalls than any other Internet mail.  Most firewall
products are designed to pass e-mail carefully between interior machines
and the outside world.  E-mail messages are passed unchanged from the
outside to the inside.  Since some sites want to keep secret the machine
names of interior machines, the sender address and the Message-Id field
of outgoing messages are sometimes changed or scrambled by the firewall.
The sender constructs its e-mail message, and sends it to the public e-
mail address, edi@gatekeeper.yourhospital.com.  The firewall system maps
the user edi to an interior address edi@edi.yourhospital.com where it is
handled as before.

   The approach described in this document does not fail when firewall
systems alter e-mail messages to hide the interior addresses.

6.2 Coexistence of E-mail and TCP/IP Based Communications

A site can easily integrate E-mail based communication with existing TCP
based HL7 applications.  Suppose that an institution already has several
TCP/IP based HL7 applications.  It can create its version of
HL7emailhandler to converse with remote senders using MIME formatted e-
mail messages.  On reception, HL7emailhandler recovers the pure HL7
payload, then makes a standard TCP connection to the existing TCP based
applications.  The existing applications will operate without
modifications.  The ACK message flowing back from the existing
application will be bundled into a MIME message and sent to the remote
sender

   Installations using a router, mediator, or gateway product for
messaging easily accommodate e-mail clients.  The router will gain only
one new TCP connection to the HL7emailhandler.

   As will be discussed in section 6.4, this architecture may be more
appropriate for existing applications that are accepting unsolicited
updates or queries.  Applications that initiate updates or queries may
not function without modification if they wait for a synchronous reply.

   Depending on the router product in use, there may be a drawback for
this architecture.  The HL7emailhandler may need to take on many of the
functions of a router.  It may need to inspect the HL7 payloads coming
from the Router to determine the actual recipient, and then re-mail the
HL7 messages accordingly.

   A simpler approach may be to use separate e-mail addresses for
separate HL7 applications, and run many HL7emailhandler processes.  To
external applications, each internal application will have its own e-
mail address, e.g., lab@edi.yourhospital.com, adt@edi.yourhospital.com,
repository@edi.yourhospital.com. To internal applications, each external
system would appear as a separate TCP port.



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+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
|                                     lab                              |
|                                     [ ]<------TCP-----+              |
|                                      A                |              |
|   remote[A]<--+                      |tcp             |              |
|               | ..............       V                |              |
|               | : surrogates :      +------+          |              |
|               +--->[A 9012]<--TCP-->|router|          V              |
|   remote[B]------->[B 9013]<--TCO-->|      |<--TCP-->[ ]repository   |
|               +--->[C 9014]<--TCP-->| hub  |          A              |
|               | :            :      +------+          |              |
|               | ..............        A               |              |
|   remote[C]<--+ edi@yourhosp.com      |tcp            |              |
|                                       V               |              |
|                                      [ ]<-----TCP-----+              |
|                                      adt                             |
|                                                                      |
|                                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 9: The e-mail handler relays messages to existing HL7
applications. Surrogate processes provide separate TCP services for each
remote destination. The internal communication that may or may not use a
router hub can treat the remote hosts as if they where local TCP
servers.

   In this scenario, depicted above, each remote application has a
``surrogate'' process running on the HL7emailhandler machine.  The
surrogate acts as a TCP listener for a single remote e-mail client.
Incoming messages are accepted, and retransmitted via e-mail to the
actual recipient process.  For example, when the router wants to send a
message to the system ``Remote A'', its routing tables tell it to send a
standard TCP message to port 9012 on your edi.yourhospital.com machine.
Listening at port 9012 is a copy of the HL7emailhandler software that
accepts the connection, mimics an accept ACK back to the router, then
sends the HL7 payload off in MIME format via e-mail to the remote
machine A.

   This architecture works without adding special routing functionality
to the institution's version of HL7emailhandler.  Existing HL7
applications are told that three new applications exist.  ``Remote A''
running on a local machine at port 9012, ``Remote B'' at 9013, and
``Remote C'' at 9014.






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6.3 Logging Messages and Receipts

One of the important requirements for sending e-mail messages via
Internet mail is non-repudiation.  Previous sections have shown how the
appropriate combinations of message digests and digital signatures can
allow a receiver to prove that the message it has received must have
been originated by its putative sender.  This requires a copy of the
message as it was sent.  In case of dispute, the receiver will not want
to rely on the sender to provide a copy of the disputed message.

   When an organization sends a message it needs to be able to prove
that the message was received, processed and agreed upon by the
recipient.  This requires copies of the original message and receipt
messages that were returned.

   Establishing that certain messages were exchanged and accepted
requires the organization to maintain two logs (outgoing.log,
incoming.log), and, perhaps, a very small database of sent but not yet
acknowledged messages (pending_messages.db).

   The HL7emailhandler process should maintain an outgoing.log file
containing the e-mail messages it sent.  Each entry in the outgoing.log
can be a simple copy of the message it sent.  In this case, by adding
the line ``From edi@edi.yourhospital.com'', the file becomes a standard
UNIX mailbox format file, that can be browsed by all most mail programs
including Netscape. In order to allow quick searching and browsing it is
recommendable to save the outgoing message in an unencrypted form after
it is signed.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|From edi@edi.yourhospital.com                                         |
|To: edi@edi.somehosptial.com                                          |
|Content-type: mutlipart/encrypted; boundary="edi-msg-29292"           |
|Content-encoding: 7bit                                                |
|Message-id: 321431                                                    |
| ...                                                                  |
|--edi-msg-29292                                                       |
|Content-transfer-encoding: base64                                     |
|                                                                      |
|aa78hh989hff5fkn99fkj24aserfakjfasodi2afmlsakfl32irafs                |
| ...                                                                  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+


   If the organization ever needs to prove a message was sent, it can
analyze each entry to recover the Message-id and the original HL7
message.  From this, it can compute the checksum of the original HL7
message payload.  These disputes should be very rare.  The organization



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can post-process the log files when the occasion demands and need not
keep an index to the log files.  The processed log will be the
equivalent of a table of which table 6 is an example.


Table 6: Journalized outgoing messages.

+--------------------------------------------+
|Message-id   Checksum    Contents           |
+--------------------------------------------+
|321431       78920BD43   MSH|...|ORU...     |
|12342        02C89FC9    MSH|...|ADT^A02... |
+--------------------------------------------+


   If the organization can prove that a destination received the message
with ID 321431 with checksum 78920BD43, then our recovered table can
produce the HL7 message that had that checksum.

   As messages are sent, the organization will construct a
PendingMessage file. Table 7 continues the example.


Table 7: Pending messages file.

+-----------------------+
|Message-Id   Checksum  |
+-----------------------+
|321431       78920BD43 |
|12342        02C89FC9  |
+-----------------------+


   For each outgoing message sent, a Message Disposition Notification
will eventually be returned to us, containing an Original-Message-ID
(e.g., 321431) and a Received-Content-MIC (e.g., 78920BD43).

   The HL7emailhandler will copy the full text of all incoming messages
to incoming.log, and immediately extract the Message-id and the
Received-content-MIC.

   Next, it will check its file pending_messages.db , find that message
id 321431 indeed had checksum 78920BD43, and remove that entry from the
pending message file.  Should it find a disparity, it can alert
personnel for corrective action.  Any corruption of the original e-mail
message should have been detected by the responder, and our message
should have been rejected.  It is almost certainly a software error for
the responder to accept our message, and yet compute a different



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checksum.

   A program must periodically examine the file pending_messages.db for
outgoing messages.  It will notify personnel to initiate corrective
actions for outgoing messages that have not been matched with replies
after a suitable period.

6.4 Interface Negotiations for HL7 over E-mail

Two overriding characteristics influence the implementation of HL7 over
e-mail: the medium itself and the fact that the sending and receiving
systems are not operated by the same organization.  The response times
in the e-mail medium are much slower and more variable than those that
can be achieved with direct virtual circuits.  Furthermore, the medium
lends itself to batch operations.  A message processor may choose to
accumulate a group of transaction in e-mail messages and process them in
periodic batches.  There is no guarantee that responses will be returned
in the order that the original messages were sent.  There is the slight
potential for e-mail messages to be lost and misrouted between the
sender and receiver.  There is the potential for ``spoofing'', sending
counterfeit messages.

   Because there are different organizations there is necessarily an
arms-length relationship among them that influences the interface
negotiation and operation.

6.4.1 Impact of the Medium

Most HL7 installations design for synchronous acknowledgements.  When a
sender initiates an HL7 unsolicited update, it waits for an
acknowledgement from the receiving application or the HL7 router.  The
sender enforces time-outs on the order of a few tens of seconds and
retransmits if there is no response.  When transactions are sent over e-
mail, the response times will be much longer.  The agreement among
organizations that enables the use of e-mail transactions must specify
transaction designs that do not include immediate application
acknowledgements.  In environments like that shown in Figure 9 the HL7
router can supply accept acknowledgement messages (ACK with
MSA-1-acknowledgement-code set to CA).  This may permit existing
applications that do not require immediate application response to
continue to operate.

   The response times, the opportunities for batch processing, and the
possibility of receiving responses out of order will affect the HL7
application transaction design.  The design must carefully consider the
handling of application errors to determine whether they should be
recognized in application acknowledgements or through a manual exception
report.



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6.4.2 Negotiating Interface Agreements

Because independent organizations are negotiating the interface, the
agreement is a contract.  This implies a higher level of scrutiny than
is typical of HL7 Implementation Agreements.  Among other concerns, the
agreement will address

1. the message types, trigger events, segment and data field usage that
   is normally expected in HL7 implementation agreements

2. exact usage of e-mail addresses

3. the timing of transmissions and responses

4. procedures for dealing with error situations including contact
   information, and

5. operational or financial consequences of failure to send or process
   messages.

   The e-mail medium is well suited to data collection applications
where software located in many organizations occasionally sends HL7
transactions to a system that maintains a database.  In these
applications it is particularly critical that the application design
include means for establishing that the expected data has been received.
The interface agreements must clearly specify the means for follow-up.

7 Endnotes

1. ibid., p. 124.

1. ibid., p. 8.

1. The relevant e-mail lists are: hl7-mime@umich.edu or
   hl7@virginia.edu.

1. e.g., RFC 2200, dated June 1997

1. PKCS documents are available through RSA Data Security, Inc.

1. see HL7 v2.3, section 2.1.2.1

1. some say: ``Multimedia ...''

1. Access control enforcement is currently considered out of the scope
   of HL7, as it influences the communicating system's internal working
   rather than mere external communications.




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1. One of the most curious security breaches that ever happened
   illustrates a sequencing thread: Jackpotting an ATM was done by
   interception of a confirmation message sent from the Bank to the ATM
   telling the ATM to dispense the requested amount of money. By
   continuous replay of this message, intruders were able to drain ATMs
   empty as if they had won the jackpot. [Ross Anderson. Why
   cryptoystems fail]

1. see Phil Zimmerman: PGP User's Guide, Volume II: Special Topics; Oct
   11, 1994.

1. Version 5 of PGP comes with unencumbered default algorithms already.

1. European laws, however, require that digital signatures belong to
   individuals only, not organizations. They also require that every
   digital signatures be made as a conscious act of the signing
   individual in order to protect individuals from signing without their
   consent. This presents a dilemma: (1) the only person who may be
   conscious about the triggering of a message is an end user; (2a) but
   this end user is not individually responsible for the entire content
   of the message; (2b) the organization that is responsible for the
   message cannot sign it. In the paper-world, individuals who sign ex
   officio are usually backed by their organization, hence the work-
   around this dilemma may be to let individuals sign. However, digital
   signatures are much better manageable if organizations are the
   signers, for the recipient organization needs to know only the
   signature of the peer organization, rather than all signatures of
   every single employee working for the other organization. These
   issues will have to be revised in the legislation. One option is to
   regard organizational digital signatures as of the same legal dignity
   as organizational stamps and seals.

1. Note that S/MIME does not obey the MIME Security Multipart
   specification for multipart/encrypted (see also section 4.3).

1. Gzip is a very efficient compression program of the Free Software
   Foundation's GNU project. The gzip program has been ported to
   virtually all operating system platforms.

1. Compress is the traditional UNIX(R) compression program. It is less
   efficient than gzip.

8 Addresses of the Authors








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Gunther Schadow
Regenstrief Institute
1001 W 10th Street, RG5
Indianapolis, IN 46202
Phone: +1 317 630 7960
E-mail: gunther@aurora.rg.iupui.edu


Mark Tucker
Regenstrief Institute
1001 W 10th Street, RG5
Indianapolis, IN 46202
Phone: +1 317 630 2606
E-mail: tucker_m@regenstrief.iupui.edu


Wes Rishel
Wes Rishel Consulting
970 Post Street
Alameda, CA 94501
Phone: +1 510 522 8135
E-mail: wes@rishel.com



9 Full Copyright Statement

Copyright (C) 1998, Health Level-7, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

   This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or
assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included
on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this document itself
may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice
or references to Health Level-7, Inc. or Internet organizations, except
as needed for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case
the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process
must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other
than English.

   The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
revoked by Health Level-7, Inc. or its successors or assigns.

   This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
"AS IS" basis and HEALTH LEVEL-7, THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,



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INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE
INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
















































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