CLOSED - (M)PSE: eID Protocols

Project System Development

In the system development project, students work in teams under practical conditions on a given IT topic. In terms of content, the project group works independently on current practical issues. The lecturer assumes the role of the client / customer. At the same time, however, he supports the team in order to set the right course, especially in the initial phase, and to get the project rolling.

In an introductory event, the task is presented and the framework conditions are explained. During the project, weekly project meetings will take place, in which the results of the past week will be presented and the goals for the coming week(s) will be set.

Topic

Extended Access Control (EAC) and Password Authenticated Connection Establishment (PACE) are the EU's standard protocols for establishing secure communication between eCard chips and service terminals. They serve the verification of the terminal's access to data stored on the chip. These protocols are based on cryptographic methods and primitives such as RSA and DH, which are now classified as insecure according to NIST, due to the development of Quantum-Computers.

The aim of the project is the implementation and further development of these security protocols for the authentication of electronic documents (eID), such as the electronic identity card (ePA) and the electronic passport (ePassport), and the evaluation of their ability and suitability for the expected conversion (migration) to post-quantum cryptography (PQC).

For this purpose, the students are tasked with integrating prepared implementations of these protocols into different platforms, in order to test, evaluate, and eventually adapt those accordingly. The chosen platforms are normal PCs and VMs, embedded development-boards, GPUs, and eService Terminals. These choices are supposed to help comparing the run-time performance so that optimazations may be identified and made.

The specific scope and stage of development of the project depend, among other things, on the size of the team (number of participants) and the technical possibilities.

Scrum is to be used as a process model for agile system development. The usual development tools are used, preferably those that already exist in the department, e.g. GIT repository, scrum board, etc. It is planned to continue the project in future events. The project is under the MIT license.

If you have any further questions about the project, please contact us by email.

Nouri Alnahawi
Hochschule Darmstadt