Principal to Principal Communication

See Figure  on page  .

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Figure: Principal to Principal Layer

There is a new fourth layer: the Principal to Principal layer (PTP). This layer deals with communication that is between authenticated principal to authenticated principal.

An authenticated principal is a person, computer, or software application that has been authenticated using a password or key mechanism. Data is protected with encryption. There is a rich, name space of principals and an authentication algorithm, either public or private key, with the aid of kerberos-like protocols.

See Figure  on page  .

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Figure: Principal to Principal Packet

New applications can call the PTP directly. Existing applications need not be modified. The socket library would be replaced with a default PTP layer and a new authentication client needs to be made available.