AW: [egov] XML messaging: OSCI (Online Services Computer Interface)

["Hagen, Martin (Finanzen)" <mhagen@finanzen.bremen.de>]

Title: AW: [egov] XML messaging: OSCI (Online Services Computer Interface)

Jon,

OSCI is one of the results of a huge E-Government initiative launched in 1998. At the beginning, we thought that we could use a banking protocol called HBCI (Homebanking Computer Interface). This was the standard which the German banking industry was comitted to implement at the time and we felt that it would not be wise to develop a new standard for government. However, one crucial objective we had to address was that the requirements of governments were taken care of.

I won't bore all of you with the details of a long history. In any case, HBCI couldn't deliver the job as the basis, largely for two reasons:

1) The role model in government is very different from the banking and commerce sectors. There, it is implied that an organization knows everything about the customer. In government, you need to protect individual bits of (personal) information. E.g., that Organizational Units of the same organization are not allowed to view the contents of all messages received by the organization. This sounds simple, but it turned out to be a tricky challenge.

2) HBCI was not XML-based.

Therefore, we decided that OSCI should be an XML-based protocol. As we stuck to our strategy not to develop anything which didn't already exist we only used open protocols, therefore the use of SOAP, XMLsignature and XMLencryption. What we did then was *specifying* these protocols to the needs of the regulations set forth in the EC directives on electronic signatures and encryption, which mandate the use of certain key lenghts, something which is left open in the mentioned standards.

The main reason why OSCI is now so popular is because it has demonstrated its worth in a variety of applications, which are up and running.

We have joined OASIS exactly for the reasons which have guided the development before, to look at ebXML and see how it is compatible. As I'm not the tech person, I'm not able to discuss this in great detail, but from what I understand there seems to be a big overlap between the two. That is why we are so interested in the recent debate on Graham's paper, because it is exactly the right direction where we need to go. We need to network all the standards which are out there!

Could you tell me by looking at the specs if you think that OSCI is very different from ebXMLmessaging? It would be productive to set up a list of deltas which we could then address for resolution.

Best wishes,
Martin

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: jon.bosak@sun.com [mailto:jon.bosak@sun.com]
Gesendet: Montag, 28. Juli 2003 00:48
An: mhagen@finanzen.bremen.de
Cc: egov@lists.oasis-open.org
Betreff: Re: [egov] XML messaging: OSCI (Online Services Computer
Interface)

| The transport part of OSCI is a SOAP implementation, including
| W3C's electronic signature and encryption specifications, albeit
| taylored to the requirements of the European Union electronic
| signatures directive.

Hello Martin,

Could you give us some insight into why the German government
chose to develop its own secure messaging protocol rather than
use ebXML?

How do you intend to interoperate with industries adopting ebXML
on a global basis?

Jon

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