MIME-Based Secure Peer-to-Peer Business Data Interchange Using HTTP, Applicability Statement 2 (AS2)

This document provides an applicability statement (RFC 2026, Section 3.2) that describes how to exchange structured business data securely using the HTTP transfer protocol, instead of SMTP; the applicability statement for SMTP is found in RFC 3335. Structured business data may be XML; Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in either the American National Standards Committee (ANSI) X12 format or the UN Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce, and Transport (UN/EDIFACT) format; or other structured data formats. The data is packaged using standard MIME structures. Authentication and data confidentiality are obtained by using Cryptographic Message Syntax with S/MIME security body parts. Authenticated acknowledgements make use of multipart/signed Message Disposition Notification (MDN) responses to the original HTTP message. This applicability statement is informally referred to as "AS2" because it is the second applicability statement, produced after "AS1", RFC 3335.