Org.eclipse.higgins.hbx

Overview

The Higgins Browser Extension (aka HBX) is a Firefox extension written in Javascript. When Higgins Extension is installed and your browser lands on a "relying party" (RP) site, HBX manages authentication and other kinds of identity-related interactions between the RP site and the (hosted or local) Higgins service.

Languages

1. Javascript and XUL (Firefox)
2. Javascript (IE) [planned, not started]
3. Javascript (Safari) [planned, not started]

Deployment (End user download and installation)

1. Firefox 1.5.x or 2.x HBX running on Windows, OSX, Linux
2. Internet Exporer 6 HBX running on Windows [planned, not started]
3. Safari HBX running on OSX [planned, not started]

Operation

The current version of the Higgins Extension has varying levels of support for what we will loosely call RP interaction types. These interactions begin after the browser has done an HTTP GET on some page. The Higgins Extension parses the HTML to find markers (e.g. kinds of <object> tags, etc.) that indicate what type of interaction the RP site supports.

RP Interaction Types

• If it finds CardSpace-compatible markers, then this indicates that the RP site supports CardSpace-compatible authentication (sign-in).
• If it finds RSS-P markers then the site allows HBX to "project" identity information (usually non-identifiying attributes) to the site, e.g. to express the user's "shopping" persona (preferences, etc.).
• HBX also supports HTML screen scraping and form filling --though the site must add special tags for this to work, so this isn't a general purpose solution.

Status

The Higgins Extension is only useful for Higgins developers (at best!) It currently requires a hosted Higgins service to operate, and since Higgins itself is only partially implemented, very little works end-to-end at all at present.

We expect by the end of milestone 0.8 to have the extension once again working with the latest version of the Higgins service. At that time the extension + service will be capable of:

• CardSpace: [Assuming that the IP roadblocks related to Microsoft's technology have been cleared,] the extension will use the Higgins service to generate CardSpace-compatible Digital Identities and POST these tokens to CardSpace-compatible RP sites. During this interaction the extension will invoke the ISS Web UI "card picker" component on the hosted Higgins service.
• RSS: Support for "projecting" a persona selected by the user onto the RP site
• HTML: Screen scraping and form filling from/to 2-3 websites

HBX version 0.7.X

• HBX Installation 0.5.X --how to install it
• Compatible with Firefox 1.5.X and 2.X, Has been tested on WinXP, Linux and OSX
• Misc implementation notes
  • HBX Source Folders
  • Written in Javascript
  • Debugging tools used: To monitor all POST/Get requests the livehttpheadersextension is useful.

Misc

• We plan to integrate with Kevin Miller's Perpetual Motion plugin
• Don't use HBX and Chuck Mortimore's extension at the same time --one of them should be disabled.
• HBX Screenshots from the Jan 26, 2007 Face-2-Face meeting in Provo, Utah
• HBX Zurich movie from the Mar 1 Telco

Reference

http://xmldap.blogspot.com/2006/05/firefox-identity-selector.html - Chuck Mortimore's Firefox extension. Chuck and the Higgins team have collaborated a bit on the development of our respective extentions.

Old Junk

• HBX How To Generate New Server Account <-- obsolete
• HBX Microsoft CardSpace Support (v0.4.7+) <--old
• HBX CardSpace Test Sites <-- No longer working
• HBX RSS Test Site <-- no longer running
• HBX RSS Protocol Support (v0.5.1+)
• HBX Form Fill
• HBX Screen Scrape

Links

• Higgins Home