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This sounds awesome, but it also sounds scary. If I understand it well, the government issued the certificates for all its citizens it can both know what everyo

by rakoo 13y ago

This sounds awesome, but it also sounds scary. If I understand it well, the government issued the certificates for all its citizens it can both know what everyone does and impersonate them. I wouldn't mind that much if they were mundane operations, but things such as voting is of extreme importance. Oh, and the fact that the id is built in a manner that makes sure the person has to be born in Estonia is kinda odd. No strangers allowed ? Anyway, has anyone details about technical implementation ? That would be terrific if it could be more widespread.

jkaljundi 13y ago
Not exactly. The government does not have your private keys which are only on your PIN-protected smartcards, so they can't impersonate you. And giving public-private certificate pairs does not mean the government knows anything about using them. I sign a bank transaction, the bank knows it. I sign an electronic agreement with my card with me friend, only us know about it. Government just handles revocation lists and expiry. More about it at http://id.ee/?lang=en&id= http://id.ee/?lang=en&id= The id card being issued to citizens is quite common in Europe. The thing is that the id card allows you for visa-free travel across Europe and that has pan-European regulations attached. But foreigners can get a similar electronic authentication and signature id card in Estonia still as well. Some technical stuff also at http://www.id.ee/?lang=en&id=35755 http://www.id.ee/?lang=en&id=35755 The e-voting code for elections is made public at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/estonia-publishes-its-e-voting-source-code-on-github/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/estonia-publishes...
- iwwr 13y ago
  The problem is there is no way to know for sure the government isn't keeping all the data needed to generate keys. To make the process secure, you'd need a protocol where people get to generate their own keys (open source implementations) based on some entropy under their own control.
  - jkaljundi 13y ago
    Well the government does not generate the keys, or access the signed data. The smartcard does, inside the chip. The spec is here: http://www.id.ee/public/TB-SPEC-EstEID-Chip-App-v3.4.pdf http://www.id.ee/public/TB-SPEC-EstEID-Chip-App-v3.4.pdf Forgotten who the chip manufacturer is, but basically what you'd describe would be an attach against the chip manufacturer and their key generation algorithms and randomness. Estonian ID cards are made by Trüb AG, which does id cards also for Switzerland, Germany, Dubai and countless other countries. And the Estonian card personalization if I remember correctly is also outsourced to a private party.
rudolfosman 13y ago
No, the government does not know what everyone does and cannot impersonate them, especially in voting. Could you elaborate, why do you believe that and which technical details about implementation interest you? You can learn a lot by starting to browse through http://id.ee/?lang=en&id= http://id.ee/?lang=en&id= By the way, there was a mistake in the article about the personal ID code. The "123" do not denote the 123rd baby of that day. Rather it denotes an ordinary number that is added to the persons' ID code who happen to have been born on the same day (the country where they have been born does not matter at all). So strangers are very welcome to apply for a personal ID code in Estonia :-)
- rakoo 13y ago
  (A response also to jkaljundi) > Could you elaborate Since you get a PIN card with a private key, someone else generated it. Whoever did it could impersonate me. I guess it would be done by a private company, so at least that company can do it. But I'm pretty certain that something of this importance would be accessible to a government (no real arguments here, merely armchair discussion) It's true that only concerned parties know about the transaction... until the transaction is made public (or shared with other interests). Again, I'm pretty sure this will be one way or another visible to the government. You could say I'm paranoid and anti-government. I just think that being paranoid is a necessary thing when doing anything related to security, and this falls exactly in this topic. The very least, as iwwr points out, is that anyone could create their own private key in this system (ie associate the generated public key with the id given by the government). The secrecy of the transactions is yet another problem which basically boils down to "how much do you trust other parties", and has little to do with technology. The idea of being able to do everything, including voting, with your computer is an amazing thing, but to date very little has been done to make sure that citizens can expect the same as today in terms of secrecy, privacy and ease of use. Again, a matter of how much you are paranoid and how much you are wanting to give up security in order to make things simpler. Thanks for the link, I will have a look. > So strangers are very welcome to apply for a personal ID code in Estonia Well, that's very good news :)

by rakoo 13y ago

jkaljundi 13y ago

Not exactly. The government does not have your private keys which are only on your PIN-protected smartcards, so they can't impersonate you. And giving public-private certificate pairs does not mean the government knows anything about using them. I sign a bank transaction, the bank knows it. I sign an electronic agreement with my card with me friend, only us know about it. Government just handles revocation lists and expiry. More about it at http://id.ee/?lang=en&id= http://id.ee/?lang=en&id= The id card being issued to citizens is quite common in Europe. The thing is that the id card allows you for visa-free travel across Europe and that has pan-European regulations attached. But foreigners can get a similar electronic authentication and signature id card in Estonia still as well. Some technical stuff also at http://www.id.ee/?lang=en&id=35755 http://www.id.ee/?lang=en&id=35755 The e-voting code for elections is made public at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/estonia-publishes-its-e-voting-source-code-on-github/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/estonia-publishes...

iwwr 13y ago
The problem is there is no way to know for sure the government isn't keeping all the data needed to generate keys. To make the process secure, you'd need a protocol where people get to generate their own keys (open source implementations) based on some entropy under their own control.
- jkaljundi 13y ago
  Well the government does not generate the keys, or access the signed data. The smartcard does, inside the chip. The spec is here: http://www.id.ee/public/TB-SPEC-EstEID-Chip-App-v3.4.pdf http://www.id.ee/public/TB-SPEC-EstEID-Chip-App-v3.4.pdf Forgotten who the chip manufacturer is, but basically what you'd describe would be an attach against the chip manufacturer and their key generation algorithms and randomness. Estonian ID cards are made by Trüb AG, which does id cards also for Switzerland, Germany, Dubai and countless other countries. And the Estonian card personalization if I remember correctly is also outsourced to a private party.

rudolfosman 13y ago

No, the government does not know what everyone does and cannot impersonate them, especially in voting. Could you elaborate, why do you believe that and which technical details about implementation interest you? You can learn a lot by starting to browse through http://id.ee/?lang=en&id= http://id.ee/?lang=en&id= By the way, there was a mistake in the article about the personal ID code. The "123" do not denote the 123rd baby of that day. Rather it denotes an ordinary number that is added to the persons' ID code who happen to have been born on the same day (the country where they have been born does not matter at all). So strangers are very welcome to apply for a personal ID code in Estonia :-)

rakoo 13y ago
(A response also to jkaljundi) > Could you elaborate Since you get a PIN card with a private key, someone else generated it. Whoever did it could impersonate me. I guess it would be done by a private company, so at least that company can do it. But I'm pretty certain that something of this importance would be accessible to a government (no real arguments here, merely armchair discussion) It's true that only concerned parties know about the transaction... until the transaction is made public (or shared with other interests). Again, I'm pretty sure this will be one way or another visible to the government. You could say I'm paranoid and anti-government. I just think that being paranoid is a necessary thing when doing anything related to security, and this falls exactly in this topic. The very least, as iwwr points out, is that anyone could create their own private key in this system (ie associate the generated public key with the id given by the government). The secrecy of the transactions is yet another problem which basically boils down to "how much do you trust other parties", and has little to do with technology. The idea of being able to do everything, including voting, with your computer is an amazing thing, but to date very little has been done to make sure that citizens can expect the same as today in terms of secrecy, privacy and ease of use. Again, a matter of how much you are paranoid and how much you are wanting to give up security in order to make things simpler. Thanks for the link, I will have a look. > So strangers are very welcome to apply for a personal ID code in Estonia Well, that's very good news :)