The Control System is partitioned into two parts viz: a System Master and a Local User. The control system is common to all our Electronic Evidence Enrolment devices.
The System Master is the owner of the Certified Audio Recorder. The System Master is able to assign the recorder to specific Local Users. Once a Certified Audio Recorder has been re-assigned to a new Local User the previous Local User can no longer control the Certified Audio Recorder. This gives maximal operational flexibility as the System Master can create small User groups for sensitive cases or simple assign a Certified Audio Recorder to different departments (or geographic regions) as operation requirements change. The System Master can also decrypt all encrypted audio files.
Overview Of the Control of Audio Recorders
The Local User controls the daily operation of the Certified Audio Recorder.
The
Local User maintains a database of all Certified Audio Recorder processing actions. This enables
the Local User to keep track of all RSA keys in the Certificate Hierarchy in its
database.
The Local User is able to upload the audio recordings from the Certified Audio Recorder
using
the USB port. The certified audio file is in a proprietary format. In order to
listen to the recording on a PC the application can convert the proprietary
certified audio format to a separate WAV file. Please note that the storage of
the actual certified audio recording and the optional WAV file is done
externally to the Local application due to the size of the files.
Should the USB Security tokens be present the Local User can also decrypt the audio recording and periodically update keys in the Certified Audio Recorder. This is to ensure that earlier recordings are not compromised in any manner should the Recorder be subsequently lost.
As
cryptographic keys are used to control the recorder and to decrypt the audio
files USB-based security tokens are required to access the keys and to perform
certain cryptographic operations.
The keys in the Data Bases are encrypted using a symmetric Super Master Key
(SMK). The SMK is split into
shares and stored on three, security modules. These three USB tokens are locked
together and are referred to a 'triple'. At least two of the three USB security
tokens are required in order to reconstitute the SMK. The SMK is held in SRAM
and is erased when triggered by intrusion detectors or on loss of power.
