[Ubuntu-be] [wouter at grep.be: Re: Bounty : Guidelines and examples of Belgian eID authentication in open source ? Re: ....]

Tue Dec 26 16:02:37 GMT 2006

"Driemaal is scheepsrecht", they say in Dutch.

First got the domain wrong, then it appeared I need to be subscribed to
this list. Hopefully this'll do it :)

----- Forwarded message from Wouter Verhelst <wouter at grep.be> -----

Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 18:15:08 +0100
From: Wouter Verhelst <wouter at grep.be>
To: Etienne Saliez <etienne at saliez.be>
Cc: ubuntu-be at lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: [Ubuntu-be] Bounty : Guidelines and examples of Belgian eID authentication in open source ? Re: ....
Message-ID: <20061222171508.GA20706 at country.grep.be>
In-Reply-To: <200612161335.48115.etienne at saliez.be>
Organization: none
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11)

Hi,

[I was referred to this message by Jan Claeys; I'm not on the list, so
please Cc me on any replies]

On Sat, Dec 16, 2006 at 01:35:47PM +0100, Etienne Saliez wrote:
> Nicolas,  thank you very much for your message below.
> 
> I need also a good interface to the Belgian eID, in Open Source, and probably 
> other Belgians have the same question, since the problem is of common 
> interest.
> My own projects involve professional healthcare providers, as well patients.
> 
> In the coming months I have myself not enough time nor experience to study 
> that questions in details.
> 
> Since this is currently a belgo-belgian issue, we cannot expect that Ubuntu 
> International would give much priority to such a local problem, although more 
> generic versions will probably follow later.
> 
> 
> In order to support that project I propose a call for a "bounty".
> 
> As a start I propose to give a donation of 500 Euros and I invite
> other people to join and maybe to add even more resources, either in
> currency or in kind finding time to contribute.

As the Debian developer maintaining the eID packages, I'm of course more
than willing to write more documentation if that's necessary. If
anything, it's quite clear that while the packages work, there are still
many people who have issues with it (both because of the questions in
this mail, and because of the questions people ask me in private mails
or bugreports)...

> Summary of the requirements:

Allow me to make a few comments on that one :)

> - ( 1 )  A practical userguide about authentication by means of Belgian 
> Electronic Identity card in Open Source, and intended for not very 
> experienced informaticians.

That should be pretty straightforward (basically, "install these
packages, and open that HTML file if you want to use the mozilla
plugin).

> - ( 2 )  Recommendations about several possible card readers, including 
> options for autonomous external card readers containing keypad and check 
> procedures not accessible from the host machine. 

Note that last I checked, there were no card readers with builtin keypad
which are supported under Linux, so that requirement might have to be
dropped.

> - ( 3 )  Working examples:
> The objective is to be able to authenticate the user by means of his Belgian 
> Electronic Identity Card, in relation with an LDAP and in principle in the 
> scope of VPN networks and web based approaches.

I'm not entirely sure how you want to link LDAP into this. I don't think
it can be used except for a data store with which to verify that a given
electronic ID card is allowed for authentication to this particular
system; but then there is no reason for this to be LDAP at all.

> - ( 4 )  An approach as a kind of "extreme programming", i.e. :
> (1) First make a test program calling a function and testing the results.
> (2) A the other side the functions doing the job.

Personally, I'm not convinced of virtues of that approach... oh well.

> - ( 5 )  The demos have to be made in or be compatible with at least 3 usual 
> and platform independent programming languages, as PHP, Python, Java, ....

This is not possible. There are currently bindings for Java and C/C++.
Everything else still has to be written. While this might perhaps be a
nice project to learn about writing PHP, Perl, and Python bindings, I'm
afraid that's slightly out of scope of this particular request.

(except if using libbeidlibopensc is enough; there _could_ be
Perl/Python/whatever bindings for libopensc, but I don't know about
that).

> - ( 6 )  Guidelines for installation in at least Ubuntu-Kubuntu environments 
> and if possible also in other distributions or even other platforms.

I'll obviously focus on Debian and derivatives here.

> - ( 7 )  Timing:
> Proposals are expected to be discussed until 22 Januari 2007 and agreement 
> with a team of a few persons will be confirmed.
> The resullts of the project should be ready not later than the 31 of March 
> 2007.
> (  In open source every dream is possible, but the question is when it will 
> become available !  ).
> 
> -( 8 )  Open Source and preference for a GPL licence.
> 
> 
> Copies addressed to :
> 
> - " ubuntu-be "
> 
> - Felix KLEE  coordinator of  the " TagTrade " portal in Germany  
> http://tagtrade.org/  
> 
> - Gerd MICHALKE, open source version of the Walloon healthcare network, RSW, 
> R?seau Sant? Wallon, http://www.reseausantewallon.be/
> 
> - Joel LAMBILLOTE :  shared open source project for municipalities, 
> http://www.communesplone.org/  
> 
> - Fabien PINCKAERTS, http://tiny.be/
> 
> - Fr?d?ric DESCAMPS, http://www.x-tend.be/
> 
> - ........... and feel free to forward this message to any others who could be 
> interested in providing suggestions, sponsoring and/or solutions.
> 
> 
> Etienne Saliez
> 
> etienne at saliez.be
> tel 0-26541759 or skype " saliez "
[...]

-- 
<Lo-lan-do> Home is where you have to wash the dishes.
  -- #debian-devel, Freenode, 2004-09-22

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
<Lo-lan-do> Home is where you have to wash the dishes.
  -- #debian-devel, Freenode, 2004-09-22

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
Fun will now commence
  -- Seven Of Nine, "Ashes to Ashes", stardate 53679.4