Technical Aspects

This project will produce a Free Software Public Key Infrastructure as the foundation component for secure exchange of information in e-administration and e-business applications. The project will provide free access to a high quality, modular and totally open software and hardware solution to the market. » Composition The achievement will produce a functional server-side basis for Public Key Infrastructure software. It will be composed of : A Registration Authority (RA): component that allows the verification of user identity. A Certification Authority (CA): component that allows the certification of user public key and publish user certificate. A Directory: component that allows support for keys distribution. A Key generator: Today we don't know yet how the keys are generated by browsers and servers. There is a doubt on the quality (the entropy) of the keypair. Making a independent key generator will allow the user to transparently generate keypairs, make certificate requests, and import signed certificates. The tool will allow the export of the keypair and signed certificate in a PKCS#12 format. A Certificate Management Protocol standard: define the communication protocol between RA and CA ; it allows great flexibility and interoperability between products which respect the standard. An Abstraction layer: to enable the reusability of cryptographic resources and libraries specific to legal bodies of the different countries. A Logging module: to have a look on the global activity of the PKI. An Administration module. » Different scenarios One of the main advantages of the EuropePKI product is that it will be very modular and customizable. Indeed, it will provide strong basis to the implementation of two different scenarios: The banking scenario which combine ordinary and existing account creation procedures typically found in banks with the issuance of a smartcard containing certified key pairs. The online scenario where key generation is left to the user. » Functionalities The core functionalities of EuropePKI will provide generic interfaces for complementary services built up to the Public Key Infrastructure, composed of : Time stamping: Time stamping authorities need specific parameters in certificates concerning extended key usage and service access location. Furthermore, certification and key generation of time stamp servers require different protocols than the standard certificate request exchange. Attribute Certificate management: The certificates with public key prove the identity of the person but do not define what the person can do. The certificates of attributes were designed to answer these problems. Notarisation: Notarisation services following the Data Validation and Certification Server (DVCS) protocol require special attributes for extended key usage and service locators in certificates used by these services. Validation: OCSP and DVCS require special parameters in certificates for extended key usage, service location and other information. All such services need special trust base management. » Specifications Those developments will: Be released under GPL-compatible software licenses, the (L) GPL: GNU (Lesser) General Public License and the Mozilla license, Be modular and distributable, Obey and follow the current international technical standards Integrate with and reuse the software and hardware provided by partners, Be core cryptographic independent resources. The demonstration will be led in two operational sites and will propose to demonstrate the capabilities and interoperability of the EuropePKI software. The proposed strategy is as follows: Operational platform set-up: Demonstrators will host and operate a PKI platform implementing the EuropePKI within a show-room facility in order to make certification services available to Administrations or large private companies for demonstration purpose, On-line certificates distribution freely available, Interoperability demonstration with our partners.