Below is taken from one of the Digital ID providers to help assist your migration into Digital ID’s for CAD Drawings. These certificates should not cost more than $20.00 USD for 1 year.

Digital IDs for Secure Email allow you to digitally sign and encrypt your digital communications using a certificate, bound to your validated email address. Recipients of your email will know that the content came from your email address and has remained private during transmission.

• Signed Emails: Symantec Digital IDs can be used to digitally signed emails. Many email applications, such as Microsoft Outlook, display an red ribbon icon on the email to inform your recipient that the email came from you.
• Encrypted Emails: Symantec Digital IDs can also be used to encrypt emails to protect the email content in transit. Many email applications, such as Microsoft Outlook, display a blue envelope icon on the email to inform your recipient that the email is encrypted. Only your recipient can open your email.
• General Signature & Encryption: Symantec Digital IDs can be used in many popular applications with digital signature and/or encryption features. For example, Microsoft Word allows you to digitally sign Word documents with your Symantec Digital ID. PKWare enables you to encrypt zip files with your Symantec Digital ID.

Here is a link to the video on what product to purchase at Verisign (Symantec Now) to one of the providers http://youtu.be/NnEh0CXmobw

To import a certificate

1. Open the Certificates console for the user, computer, or service you want to manage.
2. Select a certificate store for the certificate type you want to import. For example, you might select the Personal store under Certificates (Local Computer).
3. On the Action menu, point to All Tasks and then click Import to start the Certificate Import Wizard.
4. Type the file name containing the certificate to be imported. (You can also click Browse and navigate to the file.)
5. If it is a PKCS #12 file, do the following:
   • Type the password used to encrypt the private key.
   • (Optional) If you want to be able to use strong  private key protection, select the Enable strong private key protection check box. Enabling strong private key protection will ensure that you are prompted for a password every time the private key is used. This is useful if you want to make sure that the private key is not used without your knowledge.
   • (Optional) If you want to back up or transport your keys at a later time, select the Mark key as exportable check box.
6. Do one of the following:
   • If the certificate should be automatically placed in a  certificate store based on the type of certificate, click Automatically       select the certificate store based on the type of certificate.
   • If you want to specify where the certificate is  stored, select Place all certificates in the following store,  click Browse, and choose the certificate store to use.

This information was obtained from the following Microsoft link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc776889(v=ws.10).aspx

With Autodesk products, there are two methods used for protecting a drawing. Digital Certificate or Password Protect you document. We will give you a short description of each and describe how a Hash Code can help determine if a drawing is valid.

Digital Certificates

You may purchase a standard (Person Not Validated) Certificate from Verisign for $20USD. This validates the user by email only. Other more strict certificates will call and verify the business information. Once you have downloaded a certificate, it will have a Private Key that you will choose when creating the certificate. To install this certificate with a Private Key (PK), you will be prompted to enter it to install on your local machine. If you only need the Public Certificate (Without PK), you can export this with Internet Explorer, under Certificates. You may distribute the Public Key to any user along with your CAD file that has been signed with your installed PK Certificate. If you do not send the Public Key Certificate for the user to install, they will not see the drawing is Valid Signature Dialog Box.

To use a Digital Certificate, do the following steps:

1. Purchase a Digital Certificate; You will create a PK, which is stored inside the Certificate.

2. Install the Digital Certificate on your local machine for strong PK signing of CAD drawings.

3 Either you the Autodesk Certificate dialog under “Security Options” or use AEC Signature to sign your drawing.

4. Distribute your Public Key Certificate (Must be Exported. http://youtu.be/r6mhVkZIdnI ). This does not have a Password attached, so the user can click to install.

As a result, the end user can’t change the certificate on the drawing, but will be notified if they change it on their end.

Password Protect

Under Security Options in AutoCAD, select Password Protect Document, and enter your password. This will force the user to enter a password to open the drawing. Note, you CANNOT use Certificates and Password Protect at the same time. It’s either or! With AEC Signature, you can password protect the document and generate a report.

Hash Code

Hashes, Checksums or Cyclic Redundancy Checks (CRC) are used on CLOSED files with read access to generate a hash code to compare with the original file to determine if there have been any changes. If the codes are not equal, then the file has changed. AEC Signature uses the following hash algorithms: MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512.

If you have an open CAD file, the file access is partially locked, so hash software cannot complete the read. That is why we write out a copy of your drawing in AEC Signature. We can then perform a read to generate a public key report.

In 2012 version, we incorporated the Professional Reports, Time Tracking, and a new UI look, which we will keep as we move forward.In this version of AEC Signature 2013, we hope to include several enhancements listed below.

1. The ability to insert a Bar Code and QR Code Block into your drawing.

2. Professional Seal Maker. Make a conforming seal that works with the software automatically.

3. Future work that will override and augment the security settings in the Autocad file. These will support Military Classifications of Security with CAD drawings. More on this as these features are implemented.

4. Object Export Filters. The ability to export only selected drawing features.  More on this as these features are implemented.

We will always keep the AEC Signature software FREE to Autodesk users. However, the high level granularity security settings will not be included with the FREE version. There will be a vetting process, which may take up to an year. After that, these are Commercial and Military grade settings, and ,if needed, will be an additional purchase to activate the base software. then may justify the cost of a purchased license.

Keep checking this site on the progress of these changes. You will be able to download these directly from our site, and only replace the dll’s in the folders. Since there are no licensing restrictions, the updates will be an easy transition.