Netcards Coming to America

Daniel Coyle

A marvel of technology that enjoys widespread use in Europe, and to a lesser degree Canada, may finally gain acceptance in the U.S. The PC/SC Workgroup, supported by the Smart Card Forum and made up of PC and smartcard companies, recently announced its intention to develop open standards allowing the integration of smartcards with PCs. The workgroup includes Schlumberger Electronic Transactions, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG, and Bull CP8.

While the use of smartcards with PCs is nothing new, an open standard for interoperability between smartcards and PCs is. "The idea is to offer the same type of interoperability between smartcards and PCs as already exists with printers," said Jean McKenna, president of the Smart Card Forum and vice pre sident of Payment Technologies at Visa International.

At press time, the workgroup planned to release its standard in the fourth quarter of 1996, setting the stage for product announcements, including new smartcard readers from Schlumberger, the expected bundling of smartcard readers with HP PCs in early 1997, and support for the standard under Windows.

In the U.S., isolated implementations of smartcards have already occurred. Visa Cash, an electronic-cash card, proved successful at the Atlanta Summer Olympics. However, the U.S. may lack the marketplace infrastructure and consumer buy-in to make stored-value cards, used at point of sale, the dominant smartcard application in this century. "It will be at least the year 2001 before there is sufficient momentum and infrastructure to allow for the widespread implementation of stored-value smartcards in the U.S.," according to David Weisman, analyst for Forrester Group (Cambridge, MA).

This is where Microsoft comes in. Its 32-bit Windo ws APIs include a generic interface for smartcard reader technology ( see the figure ) that adheres to upcoming PC/SC standards, as well as to the ISO 7816 specification.

Smartcards will initially gain momentum from corporations looking to provide secure access for employees to corporate networks from the office or the home. The use of these cards on the Internet (hence the term Netcard) also forces a paradigm change. "With the introduction of universal standards for smartcards and readers, you no longer authenticate your terminal. You authenticate the individual," said Michel Roux, general manager, Multimedia Business Division of France-based Gemplus, a developer of smartcards and readers.

Once the technology exists in the home, or on the notebook, people will be enticed to take advantage of it for personal use.

---

Internet Security Framework

illustration_link (28 Kbytes)

Microsoft's API for smartcards insulates software developers from having to become cryptography experts.