On 25/04/06 22:22 +0530, Saswata Banerjee & Associates wrote:
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Since I know very little about digital certificates, I thought the LUG, and people like Dr. Nagarjuna will be able to ensure it works properly and that we dont get locked out.
The law mandates certificates in the form of X.509 certificates. These are also used for https, smtps and any other form of TLS transactions.
The law is bad in that it mandates a tree of trust rather than a web of trust. However, Verisign has made significant $$$ with that model.
In addition, TCS is giving some software that will make it easier to manage the digital signing of documents and to use the digital signature / digital certificate for all other purposes (other than MCA-21). They have not demonstrated that software, they just mentioned it. When I asked the question specifically about linux and mac, they told me that it has been made on windows as most computers work on windows only.
OpenSSL should work fine for that.
If the software works on Linux, that is the best, if it does not, and there are alternate tools in linux which do the same thing, it is also acceptable. If the TCS reps and their partners inform people how they can get such features to work on Linux, it would be an added advantage. Ofcourse they didnt expect an accountant to come over and ask them about Linux and drivers....... :-)
The problem with tax filing is that the application uses Adobe forms which work in Windows only.
If this was just generating a PDF to specs, and then signing it, that would have been trivial to automate. TeX + OpenSSL make for good tools.
Devdas Bhagat