At Cryptolog, one of our key priority in product developpement is maintaining a high level of compliance of all our products with the latest standards, thanks to our experts involved in European and International standard bodies on electronic signature (Cryptolog is rapporteur of CAdES standard). To comply with this strategy, Cryptolog recently participated in The Remote Plugtests© Event on XAdES and CAdES signature standards organized by ETSI Plugtest™ Service. This professional unit of ETSI is specializing in running interoperability test events like this one, for a wide range of telecommunications, Internet, broadcasting and multimedia converging standards.

In this case, the XAdES/CAdES remote Plugtests events aim at conducting extensive interoperability test cases on  XAdES 1.3.2 and CAdES 1.7.4, as well as on the new versions of signatures, XAdES 1.4.1 and CAdES 1.8.1. The main purposes of the plugtests are to improve the quality of XAdES and CAdES specifications and to enable participants to assess the level of interoperability of their own implementations. 27 companies from the EU, Turkey, USA, Japan and Israel joined the testing event and ran hundreds of generation, verification and extension (for long-term archival and validation) test cases. The involvement of Cryptolog in the development of CAdES and XAdES standards and also our participation in all the previous plugtests organized in the last three years enabled our products to successfully pass these tests.

Signature creation

CUTE, our key product for signature creation, successfully generated XAdES-BES, XAdES-T, CAdES-BES and CAdES-T signatures. All participants were able to validate these signatures. CUTE also generated XAdES-EPES and CAdES-EPES signatures which were successfully validated by most participants. The plugtest allowed to identify some issues in CAdES and XAdES standards which led to some interoperability failures.

Signature validation and extension

Serenity, our key product for signature validation and extension, successfully generated XAdES-C, XAdES-X, XAdES-XL, XAdES-A, CAdES-C, CAdES-X, CAdES-XL, CAdES-A signatures. Most participants were able to validate these signatures. On CAdES signatures, the most controversial issue was the different readings of the latest version of the specification regarding the production of the input to the computation of the message imprint for the ArchiveTimeStamp unsigned attribute (CAdES-A). This misreading will be fixed in the coming version of CAdES.

Serenity was also able to validate CAdES and XAdES signatures (all forms) generated by most of the other participants. The plugtest allowed to recognize some technical issues in the process of extending signatures for long-term archival and validation when different applications are involved. This allowed participants to agree on some common practices which may allow to increase interoperability in this scope. These practices are already supported by Serenity.

A standard European format 

Imposed by the European Commission on its member states, TSL are designed to consolidate lists of suppliers of certification services that are considered trustworthy by the different EU states within public, standardized XML files that can be accessed online. The format of these lists has been standardized in Europe (ETSI TS 102 231). The lists are used to reference all trusted authorities in a given country and include a certain amount of technical and organizational information. In particular, these lists must indicate which certification authorities issue qualified certificates under the Electronic Signature Directive (e-signature 1999/93/EC). 

To support its development on the timestamping and electronic signature market, Cryptolog appoints Corinne David as head of administrative and financial management of the company.

Corinne David joins Cryptolog to provide her experience in finance and business management of SMEs. Alumna of the École Normale Supérieure and graduate from HEC, she quickly expressed her natural fascination for finance, by starting her career in the banking sector at the BFCE (Banque Française du Commerce Extérieur) as an internal auditor.

In 1995, she becomes economic and stock analyst at Crédit National, before assuming the position of sales representative at Natexis, in which she assists her customers with the creation of structured and international fundings (LBOs, mergers and acquisitions, etc.).

Before joining Cryptolog, she spends 10 years as head of finance of production companies (Gemini Films, Gedeon Programmes). During these experiences, she divides her time between the company's financial management, private and public fundraising, and relationships with institutional partners and banks.

At Cryptolog, her main task is to structure the accounting and financial processes while supporting the strong growth of the company.

The Cryptolog development team has recently achieved an online demonstration of what could be an application of online contracts signing. You can find it at the following URL:


Before you try it, I suggest you discover this demo by launching the little slide show below. This way, you will follow the adventures of John Doe, fictitious character, who is about to sign a contract with "MyBank", an equally fictitious financial institution. But this fiction could be quite real, since it uses on-the-shelf Cryptolog products and services, without faking any part.