Infrastructure simple electronic signature. Part 1: Modeling Using Systems

The previous article on simple electronic signature (PEP) focused on legal nuances, and only briefly touched on technical solutions. The first comment on the article marked this moment. The absence of a description of technical solutions among the “pitfalls of PEP ” is not accidental, since at the legislative level, questions of the practical application of PEP are regulated only for the sphere of public services. For private business, the use of PEP is not standardized; therefore, practical experience reflects only the personal vision of the stakeholders of a particular project. This greatly limits, but judging by the comments, a non-standardized description is also claimed. The continuation of the article was born, in order to compensate for this information gap. The continuation consists of several parts, each of which briefly examines the steps of analyzing and designing the functionality of the probe . The description is based on real projects, in particular, on the successful implementation of PEP in the information system of a major supplier of technological services.

Analysis objectives

AED greatly simplifies electronic document management in the provision of complex, multi-stage electronic services, in which legally significant document management matters. Such electronic services, for example, include technological design services, telemedicine services. The simplification of the document flow is that the user, in order to remotely receive the service, does not need to deal with the public key infrastructure and install additional licensed cryptographic software on his device. The purpose of the whole article is to check the list of necessary steps to create an EEP infrastructure in a commercial organization engaged in or planning to engage in the remote provision of complex electronic services.

Basic terms and definitions

Analysis and design will be conducted on the basis of systems engineering approaches. Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary approach and ways to ensure the implementation of a successful system ( Guide to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge ). Such a design is not generally accepted, therefore, brief explanations of the terminology used are necessary and this article can also be taken as a free introduction to system engineering. I will not use rigorous definitions and exposition, trying to give a general understanding.

System - A combination of interacting elements organized to achieve one or several goals ( GOST R ISO / IEC 12207-2010 ).
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An important feature of the system is its purpose (s) for existence. In system engineering, it is customary to talk about goals as functions . Any system for something exists in the surrounding world, which means that it is a part of something “more”, performs some function in this “more”. For example, clocks are used to obtain information about time, and are used in this quality by both people and various devices. In system engineering, the “greater” has a special name — the using system . Our mind is designed in such a way that, by transmitting information about the world around us, we are talking about the functions of the systems in the systems in use. Using systems, in turn, are also a functional part of an even larger system and a hierarchy of systems is formed. And the first task is the task of analyzing how this hierarchy is structured - what function will the designed system perform in the hierarchy of using systems or what function does the system in question in the hierarchy of using systems perform.

The system, which is the subject of our interest, or which is designed taking into account anyone's identified interests, is called the target system , and this system is at the lowest level of this hierarchy. People who have a clear or implicit interest in the target system, or people whose life can be affected by the target system, are called stakeholders or stakeholders . And the most important task of designing a successful target system is to identify the full range of stakeholders, determine their interests and needs, and maximally take into account the identified interests and needs in the functions of the target system.

The next important feature of the system is the presence of a "combination of interacting elements", as laid down in the definition. Elements are systems that perform their functions in the target system, which in this aspect of consideration becomes the utilizing system. It is logical that the functions of the elements of the target system differ from the actual function of the target system in the using system, otherwise there would be no point in the existence of the target system. For example, the functions of gears or microcircuits in clocks are in no way connected with the concept of “time information”, and the main function of a watch is to provide information about time. The general term used to designate that a system consists of interacting elements is the term “ construction ”. An important nuance is that the description of the design of any system uses the terminology of functions (goals).

The concepts of "function" and "design" are very strongly interconnected, and this connection has a special name - architecture . The architecture is the central element of the systems, the source of information on what functions each structural element of the system performs. The architecture is based on numerous descriptions of systems . There is a special graphic notation that allows compactly transfer all the above defined concepts. The system in this notation is depicted as a “hamburger”, the upper half of which conveys information about the function of the system in the using system, and the lower half conveys information about the design of the system - what elements it consists of and what functions they perform. The “stuffing” in this “hamburger” is the system architecture. The hamburger diagram is a functional decomposition of the system and allows you to simultaneously keep the mental focus of the function, design and architecture of the system, to think about the system about something triune whole.



To understand what the system’s trinity is, you can simply define the elements of a hamburger diagram in architectural terms: the upper halves of a hamburger diagram form the basis for the system's functional specifications, the lower halves of the hamburger diagram form the basis for the system’s design (technical) specifications. A set of functional and technical specifications form the basic description of the system architecture.

The most important condition under which some part of the world can be called a system is the condition of the materiality of the structure. Constructive elements must necessarily exist in matter and fields, or must appear in matter and fields after the projected system is implemented . Among other things, this means the system is always individual, is an individual . All abstract concepts are not systems. The system can be “touched” conditionally, perceived with the help of the sense organs, or measured with instruments. Words, terms, pictures, drawings, diagrams, source code are not systems, they are descriptions of systems and these terms are clearly distinguished. There can be many descriptions in various aspects, and there is only one system as an individuality for these descriptions. The system is only the real embodiment of the descriptions. Models are described among descriptions - descriptions in the form of prototypes of a system of varying degrees of abstraction, i.e. text, calculations, diagrams, algorithms, the actual prototypes in the form of an experimental implementation. The degree of abstraction of the model is sometimes emphasized in the form of the prefix "meta", the more such prefixes, the more abstract in the model.

The condition of the materiality of the construction adds to the consideration of aspects of the system such an essential attribute of reality as time. Systems once appear in space, something creates them. Systems that are "creators" of other systems have a special name - supporting systems . Relatively speaking, they provide the beginning of the “life” of another system, its existence.

In order to distinguish the environment of the target system in the construction of a certain using system, in system engineering it is customary to talk about the operating environment of the target system .

Simulation of using systems for signature infrastructure

Let us explain the above with an example that is the subject of our analysis, that is, with the example of a signature. While we will not specialize the signature with the terms “personal handwritten” or “electronic”, we will only agree that the signature is material and can be an element of the system.

The signature transmits the information, hence the conclusion that the system used will be a system for receiving / transmitting information. In computer science, this process is called communications and there are the following elements:

1. Sender
2. Message
3. Recipient

It is easy to see that “communications” is a generic term for a huge number of entities. Communication of people, transfer of information between electronic devices, etc., etc. - all this can be called communications. Therefore, communication is not a system, it is a meta model for a huge number of real systems. The “communications” does not have a real construction. Thinking in terms of the real world leads to the understanding that the transfer of information is not the main function of the signature, as the transfer of information in the real world is useless by itself without using it. Who uses the information? Recipient. Thus, the recipient, whoever or whatever he is in the real world, is the system that uses it. And the sender and the message are elements of this using system. This fact becomes obvious if you add time to communication, thereby turning to the concepts of life cycle and 4D modeling (space + time). In the real world there is a recipient who is ready for communications. At some points in the lifetime of the recipient, the sender appears in his “life” and sends him a message, which the recipient then uses in his world. This interaction is shown in the following graph:

1. Recipient (exists and is ready to use communications in his “life”)
   
   1. Communication (uses sender and messages for its existence)
      
      1. The sender (the providing system for communications, provides the "birth" of the message.
      2. Message (after completion of communication, the message is used by the recipient in its activities)

Incidentally, this is the great benefit of applying the principles of systems thinking - it makes you think in terms of the life cycle of systems in the real world.

We continue to build a model of our system. In reality, the recipients of a document with a signature can be both an individual and an organization, as well as a corporation with numerous branches, as well as an entire state represented by authorities, and the whole world represented by citizens, organizations, authorities of different states. The recipient is a system of systems , but in all these various systems, you can select a common part - the rules of office work. The beneficiary is understood as an office management system , the structural elements of which are listed in a slightly outdated regulatory act: GOST R 51141-98 “Office management and archiving. Terms and Definitions".

If you try to highlight the actual design for the signature, then, first of all, we are talking about the signature on the documents. Thus, we specialize the abstract notion of “communication” with the real notion of “document exchange”. In the office management system, such an exchange is called a document flow ( GOST R 51141-98 ), and it has entities specializing the concepts of “sender, message, recipient”. For example, the message in the communications metamodel, we specialize in the concept of a document, which is disclosed in Federal Law 77-FZ "On Mandatory Copy of Documents":

A document is a tangible medium with information recorded in it in any form in the form of text, sound recording, image and (or) their combination, which has details for identifying it, and is intended to be transmitted in time and space for public use and storage.

For the sender and the recipient in the workflow there are special terms "counterparty" and "agent".

Summarizing all the above, we will construct a “hamburger” diagram for a system that uses a signature as a necessary structural element:



Conventionally, the scheme can be read as follows: the clerical system in its activities uses workflow, which, in turn, uses the documents created by the counterparty. How will this scheme help us in designing the PEP infrastructure? We will always remember the workflow and its rules as an element of the scheme. If the task is to achieve the legal significance of the signature - this is very important. If there is a task to deploy the PEP infrastructure, then it is necessary to begin with the adaptation of the office management system. This is often forgotten, and without an office management system adapted to the AED , it is very difficult to prove, for example, to the judiciary, the legal significance of an electronic signature.

In the next part, I will continue the modeling and determine the place of our target system - the signature system - in the constructed hierarchy of using systems.