Eugen Leitl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 06:08:25PM -0400, Pat Farrell wrote: >> Something tells me that soon is not gonna happen in what I would >> call soon. Smartcards (the smart part) were moderately interesting >> when there was no networking. We've been at ubiquitous networking >> for many years. > >We also have ubiquitous networking of systems which are vulnerable and >frequently compromised. Smartcard + reader is a hardened cryptographic >compartment where you can still trust what you see on the reader display, and >that nobody can sniff what is entered on the keypad. > >Such a system can be safely connected to an insecure, networked machine.
The problem with this is that in 99.99% of cases the insecure networked machine *is* the reader, rendering the smart card pretty much pointless. I've only ever seen a handful of card readers that have keypads and displays, and none that have succeeded commercially. Everyone just gets the cheap reader- only devices. Peter. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]