[AG-TECH] Secured or private AG sessions?

[Christoph Willing]

On 07/07/2010, at 10:57 PM, David Allingham wrote:

> Am I right in thinking that you can't really make a secure/private AG
> session or venue (i.e., one with control over who can join as a
> participant)?  I see the "encrypted room" in the APAG Institutions
> Lobby, but from what I can find that seems to mean that you can only
> view the audio and video streams by connecting to that venue, via the
> AG client... is that right?

David,

Its good to see the message in that venue worked. Its intent is to  
warn people of exactly the situation that you describe.

What follows from that is that, if you want a really secure meeting,  
you need to be able to restrict entry to the venue so that unwanted  
participants can't gain access to the  streams' encryption keys. The  
AG toolkit provides that functionality through the use of  
certificates. Any venue _can_ be set up (they're generally not) to  
allow entry only to participants with the correct identity certificate.


chris


> The intended use is for job interviews (and perhaps thesis defense),
> so it would be sufficient, in the first instance, to simply know that
> no-one is connecting without the other participants knowing, but I
> just wondered if it's possible to go further.  Any advice or
> corrections welcome!
>
> David
>
> ---
> David Allingham
> Research Technical Officer
> CARMA
> School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
> The University of Newcastle
> Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
> David.Allingham at newcastle.edu.au
> Tel.: (02) 492 16531
> Fax:  (02) 492 16898

Christoph Willing                       +61 7 3365 8316
QCIF Access Grid Manager
University of Queensland