Secure Videoconferencing

At the Center for Information Technology Integration, we are experimenting with algorithms and protocols for building secure applications. In our security testbed, we have modified VIC, an off-the-shelf videoconferencing application, to support GSS, a generic security interface. We then layered these interfaces onto a smartcard-based key distribution algorithm and a fast cipher. Because these components are accompanied by rigorous mathematical proofs of security and are accessed through narrowly-defined interfaces, we have confidence in the strength of the system's security. we have built a security testbed that supports prototyping and experimenting with secure distributed applications by providing interfaces to secure communications facilities. The testbed is rich in protocols, ciphers, and other middleware for secure computing; provides for rapid prototyping of secure applications by supporting standards-based interfaces; and allows extensive and flexible performance measurement. In this paper, we describe a characteristic prototyping activity in the CITI testbed: a secure videoconferencing