KDE and smartcard support

[Oswald Buddenhagen]

On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 02:17:43PM -0600, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> so i think we're actually all on the same page. great =)
> 
great. and the verdict (from thiago, george, ...?) is ...?

> > > prove the possibilities by solving the issues of getting
> > > KPasswordDialog to have a token input mode;
> >
> > that one doesn't make too much sense. KPD cannot provide a universal
> > token input mode - if this was possible, the entire kdm greeter
> > plugin stuff would be thoroughly pointless.
> 
> what i mean is that KPD should be able to not only provision passwords
> from the user to the application, but also it (or an analog of it)
> should provide a user interface as well as an API for application
> developers to easily request credentials via hardware based systems
> (smartcard, fingerprint scanner, whatever) ...
> 
yes, i know. but this really makes no sense. the basic stuff is really
trivial. and if KPD was versatile enough, configuring it properly would
be more code than a purely custom solution.

> > really work - the configuration framework needs to cover everything,
> > so in any case we have to endorse the framework we are using
> > internally - and if we switch, 3rd party developers (or rather, the
> > users) would be pretty much screwed.
> 
> we've been there and done that already, just not with crypto but with
> multimedia, hardware awareness, PIM data, etc. maybe we could learn
> something from those lessons?
> 
mind elaborating some more (what went wrong, how this might be
applicable to this case, etc.), particularly for alon & co.?
and: do you see feasible alternatives?

> i'd also be cautious about falling into the "perfect solution" trap.
> 
if you aim at perfection, you might get something acceptable. if you aim
lower, you will ... oh, well. ;)
anyway, qca is there and i assume its concepts got some hammering. it
can't get *that* bad, can it? :)

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