logon with electronic identity card (eID)

Belgium started in january 2006 with the electronic identity card (eID) as a pilot project. Other countries in Europe will follow with this.

After multiple questions from the local governments and software developers, Belgium developped a "Belgium Identity Card Developer’s Kit" with accompanying "Developer’s Guide" which allow you to read the contents of the electronic identity card, to validate and print from other (web)applications.

To use this SDK, you should first install Belgium Identity Card Run-Time, which is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (See below)

Wouldn’t it be great to allow users and webusers login on MODx with their eID? Since Belgium is a pilot project, other countries in Europe will follow this standard, and maybe the "eID logon plugin" could be an nice supplement.
Unfortunately I don’t have sufficiently technical knowledge to develop a plugin myself. But since I have a Belgium eID, I put myself candidate as beta-tester.

What is the opinion about this?



As promised above; a link to the Belgium Identity Card Run Time:
Windows:
Belgian_Identity_Card_Run-time_2.5.9.zip (10,96 MB)
middleware_Windows_NL.pdf (0,57 MB)

Mac OS X:
Belgian_Identity_Card_macosx_2.5.1.dmg (7,19 MB)
middleware_MacOSX_NL.pdf (0,5 MB)

Linux:
Belgian_Identity_Card_Run-time2.5.9.tar.bz2 (1,7 MB)
middleware_Linux_NL.pdf (0,34 MB)

This is equivalent to OpenID, discussed here; such authentication methods are neat, but I don’t think the core team can invest time in supporting them, at least until there is no clear winner/de-facto standard.

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Quote from: lukwe at Oct 10, 2006, 03:05 AM

This is equivalent to OpenID, discussed here; such authentication methods are neat, but I don’t think the core team can invest time in supporting them, at least until there is no clear winner/de-facto standard.

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Not the same at all!

As far as i understand the meaning of OpenID, it is software to decentralize authentification to provide users to have only one login that they can use anywhere on the internet. But users still have to sign up on another site in order to use it...

The suggestion i have done has nothing to do with decentralizing or passwords. Belgium (and in the very near future whole Europe) governments implementing an chip on the ID-card of the citizens (eID smartcard), that proves their identity. More info on www.eID.be (Not all information is available in English).

The Federal Government of Belgium developped a SDK (Software Development Kit) for software developpers to read the contents of this ID-card, so software developpers can use the benefits of the eID. Every citizen in Belgium will soon have an electronic ID-card, without having to register anywhere or sign up anywhere...

So this SDK isn’t an authentification system, but an addon so users with an eID can use their eID instead of an username and password.

There are many substantial differences between this and OpenID, and I don’t see them as competitors or equivalents in any way.
EDIT: Indeed, Gust has pointed this out. Although I would pretty much say that it provides users with a choice of centralised authentication rather than being completely decentralised, but that’s picking hairs. (My centre is LiveJournal, for example).

eID: It seems that web apps can access the card via a Java applet. If there is an open-source PHP app / function that uses this Java applet method to authenticate users, then that could be adapted easily to work with MODx. I wouldn’t really suggest people start from that SDK unless they have lots of Beligian users that they want to authenticate.

I have faith that the general open-source PHP community will produce such a function in due time, if it is possible. So Gust - keep an eye out elsewhere!