About OCES... the Danish government Digital Signature initiative
OCES is the danish abbreviation for Public Certificates for Electronic Services
("Offentlig Certifikat for Elektronisk Services"). Launced in 2003, OCES
comprises Public defined certificate policies from the Danish National
IT and Telecom Agency, CA approved by the agency and the underlying PKI.
Practically... this means an agreement between the Danish government
and the de-facto telecom company monopoly in Denmark
"Tele Denmark" or "TDC" - hereby known as TDC
- Obligation on part of TDC to provide free digital signature to all
Danish government agencies and private citizens.
- In return TDC is granted a monopoly to sell certificates to commercial
companies in Denmark. Price is in excess of $500 for each certificate.
- TDC was imposed a time limit (summer 2004) by which a specific number
of certificates should have been issued in order for TDC to earn a
financial reward. The goal was not reached. No new goal was set.
- Provide an opensource environment for development of components,
supporting digital signature. Now maintained at
openoces.dk.
The contract is outlined at
signatursekretariatet.dk. The
contract was signed in february, 2003.
TDC OCES links
www.certifikat.dk is the official support site for technical support to TDC Digital Signature.
http://www.certifikat.dk/producer contains links to root certificates and
other material for handling OCES digital signatures.
https://www.certifikat.dk/developer/eksempler.html was
where I got my examples used as illustration for the source code
on this site.
http://erhverv.tdc.dk/artikel.php?dogtag=tdc_e_digi_pl_pi_tek
contains information (as technical as it gets from TDC) about the OCES
signatures.
/www.cryptography.dk (2004-7-30)