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Japanese Government Requires Java and Internet Explorer 11 X86
Long time reader AmiMoJo writes: Japan has introduced "My Number", a social security number assigned to citizens and used to access government services. Unfortunately, the My Number management web portal requires the Java plug-in. Because this plug-in is deprecated in many browsers, only Internet Explorer 11 (32 bit) and Safari on Mac are supported. The explanation (translated) given for this is that in order to access My Number contactless card readers Java is the only option. Some browsers support IC card access but it seems that it is not mature enough to be viable.
on the desktop in Japan.
NPAPI is the other option, but that puts you in the exact same boat as Java (though IMHO is still better).
There is nothing more indicative of mediocrity than the presence of the Microsoft-popularized* qualifier "My"
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* ... or was it popularized by Perl????
Sigh--yet something else from the Japanese weirdness factory.
Should stick to video games and tentacle porn. Please stay out of the engineering dept.
The link is broken it leads to google translate, but it's just an empty translate page.
They have a lot of paper and are pretty useless with computers. Usually the opposite from what you see in the news about Japan. They aren't that of an advanced nation if you look at the common man. So this shouldn't be a surprise. It's good that they're trying to automate some stuff but it will take some time and they will make some mistakes. Even dumb mistakes like this one.
Yawn, IE11 defaults to 32 bit anyway. You get both 32bit and 64bit installs on windows. And many times 64 bit version has many issues especially with compatibility. In fact, many enterprises disable the 64 bit IE entirely.
Kinda like how MS themselves recommend NOT using 64 bit office, but only 32 bit office installs, because it's full of issues that MS doesn't bother to fix.
The x86 IE 11 requirement is a non story.
The java requirement on the other hand...
waterfox 64 bit works with java!
Now supermicro can we get a non java ipmi?
Sounds like someone misunderstood what future proofing means.
Tokyo is covered in wifi. Wifi that's horrendously configured, overlapping, and almost completely inaccessible from phones built in the last 5 years. A lot of it is WEP. I just kind of assume they have different priorities from more Western nations.
Whoever gave the contract to the maker of the contactless card reader which only has a Java driver is an idiot and should be fired.
South Korea mandated the use of an ActiveX control for online payments in the 1990s, which has locked companies and banks there into a deprecated and dangerous technology. Only in the last couple of years has the government there started the process of getting rid of the damn POS system.
Someone please tell the Japanese government that what they are doing is a REALLY bad idea.
They have a lot of paper and are pretty useless with computers. Usually the opposite from what you see in the news about Japan. They aren't that of an advanced nation if you look at the common man. So this shouldn't be a surprise. It's good that they're trying to automate some stuff but it will take some time and they will make some mistakes. Even dumb mistakes like this one.
Also: cash is still king. Their banking system is fairly antiquated, and so debit and credit are supposedly a hassle to setup (because of fees).
Supposedly fax machines are also still used extensively.
A lot of places in Asia seem to be in the prehistoric age when it comes to Internet tech.
Korea has similar issues with a bunch of banking and government sites. I think just in the last year many have fixed it, but my wife has had a f*** of a time because many of those sites required IE6 and ActiveX (for their "security" plugins, ironically). If you're in Korea it's a bit less of an issue because you can just drop by the bank or gov't agency, but it's especially a pain for anyone overseas.
It's because most of this browser and operating system version stuff matters very little in the daily life of real people. It's not a big deal to setup a system that conforms to the government's requirements, and the government doesn't have to create a massive project every few years to revamp their systems and retest for conformance over an ever growing matrix of computing platforms.
browser plugin deprecation is a non-issue.
just use java web start instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Web_Start
all you have to do is write a tiny .jnlp file and link to.
done.
But, how do I run Internet Explorer on my Windows XP machine?
Local application server listening to localhost interface. It is native win32 application which interacts with hardware crypto-provider.
The web page loads JS application which in safe way interacts with server using keys stored in crypto-provider.
Works under all modern browsers.
Windows-tightened because crypto-provider produced only for windows.
Why doesn't this POS support openSC?
Or any kind of open standard for that matter.
Do I miss something?
Or where is TFA?
South Korea mandated the use of an ActiveX control for online payments in the 1990s, [...]
No, they mandated a certain level of crypto, which (in 1999) was only possible via a browser plug-in:
In fact, there were two versions of SSL: U.S. edition and international edition. The U.S. edition supported 128-bit secret key whereas the international edition supported 40-bit secret key. The problem is that 40-bit secret key is too weak to use for message encryption.
South Korea needed a better encryption than what the international edition supported, so Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) developed 128-bit block cipher called SEED in 1999. The development was necessary since there was a proliferation of personal computers and the internet network during that time all over South Korea. KISA chose ActiveX control to use their secure cipher on Internet Explorer, which was used by the most of internet users in Korea.
* https://medium.com/@yunkee_lee/why-has-south-korea-been-stuck-with-activex-44c773dbf54
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEED
It reached a critical mass and so people were stuck with it. Though the regulations weren't officially lifted until a few years ago (once software crypto ITAR was relaxed).
If the problem are the modern browsers that disabled NPAPI plugins then you can use Palemoon, even the x64 build still runs Java.
If I tried to pass something like this off to my boss.... id loose my job!
to interact with a card reader from a browser ?
The point of Java is to be cross platform, so I don't understand why it would be limited to IE11 or any browser.
Java was developed by Sun, which was later bought out by Oracle. It turns out Oracle has their own special set of priorities and Java plugin bug fixes was not one of them.
Also, the "point of Java is to be cross platform" thing was just an early PR thing. The point of Java (in practice) was to take C++, remove the "C" and cover any remaining sharp corners with padding.