A Group of "Standards"

Several years ago, in an attempt to promote smartcard interoperability, the ISO developed the 7816 standard. It focuses on a smartcard's size, weight, and electrical and data-link-protocol levels. Later industry standards, such as the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (EMV), adopted the ISO standard and defined their own application-specific data and encoding rules. Application-interoperability issues , such as cross-industry standard interface and command set, were not addressed in these later standards.

Building on these existing standards, the PC and Smart Card (PS/SC) Workgroup, whose members include Bull CP8 Transac, Gemplus, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Schlumberger, Siemens Nixdorf, and Sun Microsystems, two years ago began addressing the interoperability between PCs and smartcards. The result is a standa rd interface and a set of command-set specifications for platform-independent and application-neutral solutions for hardware and software developers alike.

The PS/SC specification allows for interoperability between cards and readers from different manufacturers. It also reduces software-development costs by making resource sharing across multiple applications possible.

Microsoft's announcement that Windows 98 and NT 5.0 will include a PC/SC-based API and interoperate with smartcard hardware solutions at the device-driver level is a strong indicati on that PC/SC will gain broad acceptance in the industry.

Java Card 2.0, an API supported by a consortium of smartcard manufacturers, was specified by JavaSoft. Java Card applications run on top of a Java virtual machine (VM) that, to a large extent, shields the card's OS details from the application.

The fundamental strength of the Java Card 2.0 API is that it offers both security and integrity. By making use of Java's security features, each application occupies its own allocated memory space , thus avoiding interference between applications. With a card issuer's authorization, it's possible to securely add and remove applications on a single card.

The OpenCard Framework, which is supported by companies such as IBM, Netscape, Oracle, and Sun, originally aimed at introducing smartcard standards into the network-computer (NC) arena. Sun says it will incorporate OpenCard into its network-management and NC strategies as a complement to Java Card. In addition, the recent work of the OpenCard group aims at an interoperation with the PC/SC specification.

MULTOS, a multiapplication-card OS, enables a number of different products or services to be held securely and independently on a single card. It builds on the ISO 7816, EMV, and GSM standards, so products from different industries can coexist on the same card.

MULTOS and the Java Card API share the same goal, but they cannot coexist on one card. Only one interpreter can be in control of application execution at any one time. However, Sun and Mondex International are working on interoperability specifications for both platforms. In the end, Java Card and MULTOS might make it possible for developers to sell truly hardware-independent applications.

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Java Multiapplication Card

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Applications are segregated into their own memory space.