IT Baseline Protection Manual - The Information Warfare Site

Safeguard Catalogue - Communications Remarks
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S 5.22 Compatibility check of the transmission and
reception systems
Initiation responsibility: Head of IT Section, IT Security Management
Implementation responsibility: IT Procedures Officer
The reliability of data exchange depends on the compatibility of the sending
and receiving systems involved. The necessary compatibility, in turn, depends
on the complexity of the data to be exchanged. Before establishment of a
regular exchange of data media, the following characteristics must therefore
be examined in order to determine any incompatibilities and eliminate them if
possible.
- Physical storage medium:
One prerequisite is that both the transmission and reception systems must
have identical physical storage media. However, mechanical equivalence
alone is not enough, as differences in parameters like tape speed or disk
capacity can also lead to problems.
- Character set (e.g. ASCII or EBCDIC):
If the transmission and reception systems have identical character sets,
physical reading allows the interpretation of individual sectors/blocks in
the text which can be distributed sporadically on the data carrier. If the
character sets are not identical, the transmitted data is interpreted
incorrectly.
- Formatting the operating or file system of the data medium:
If both systems also have the same operating and file system, or the
reception system is capable of reading the formats of other operating
systems (some UNIX operating systems can read DOS diskettes), then all
files can be reproduced in the form in which they were present at the
sender. This proves adequate for information not requiring any further
formatting as carried out by most application programmes (e.g. word
processors).
- Application software:
If application programmes were used for generating the data to be
transferred, these programmes must be checked for their respective
version, as the file formats might be different. The versions need not be
identical in case of upward/downward compatibility.
- IT security software and IT security parameters:
If IT security products or the protective mechanisms of certain application
programmes are used (cf. S 4.30 Utilisation of the security functions
offered in application programmes), the compatibility of these products
must be ensured. The sender and recipient must reach an agreement on the
keys and passwords used.
In case of incompatibilities, additional measures or products must be provided
to achieve the required conversion, or the transmission and reception systems
must be identically configured.
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IT-Baseline Protection Manual: Oktober 2000