[Bug 15592] New: Feature Request: A javax.smartcardio alternative

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=15592

           Summary: Feature Request: A javax.smartcardio alternative
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: All
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: P2
         Component: HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson)
        AssignedTo: ian@hixie.ch
        ReportedBy: dieter@lin-k.net
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org,
                    public-html@w3.org


In the smartcard industry and especially in the eID enabled countries, that is
countries with a smartcard citizen identity card, working with smartcards in a
website context is rather restricted. Currently the only decent way out of the
browser's sandbox to talk to a smartcard is by loading a Java 6 applet which
uses the javax.smartcardio API.

We feel that this current approach restricts innovation in the smartcard+web
application world:
* applets are hard to style
* applets require users to install Java 6
* in some environments Java 6 is not available, and in others it might be a
threatened technology

It would be a good thing if a web application could send APDU commands to
smartcards using Javascript without requiring users to install browser plugins
or Java 6. While for some smartcard applications having to install some
software is no problem at all because they run in IT-operations controlled
environments, citizen oriented applications are a completely different beast.
Having no other requirements than to install a recent browser would be of great
benefit to all users and application owners.

Adoption of a smartcard API in the HTML5 spec is I believe the best guarantee
to vendor adoption.

A last note to avoid confusion: the smartcardio API is not only about keypairs
and signing which could be handled by some keychain-like API. The smartcardio
API is about talking any protocol to any smartcard embedded applet.

I hope this request was submitted to the correct bug tracker. If not, sorry for
wasting your time.

thanks,
Dieter Houthooft
an identity and access management industry professional in a 100% eID roll-out
country (Belgium)

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Received on Wednesday, 18 January 2012 03:28:38 UTC