Smartcards for Dummies

Question

Are there any defacto resources for understanding the basics of smart cards?

My problem is that I don't know what I don't know about the technology.

Any good primers?

Are you looking more for hardware or software information? I've managed an entire career (so far) knowing alot about provisioning PKI for Smart Cards, while knowing less than 10 bullet points about the hardware side...
@bethlaksmi hmm. Both preferably, but software at a minimum.
If you're looking for the real basics, you can always check out Wikipedia

john · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-07 04:00:06Z

If you don't want to read straight from standards, and you are looking something in book form, this is a nice primer, (fairly) entry level into smart card security: http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Cards-Tokens-Security-Applications/dp/1441944265 . It's written by two university professors and is the course book on a msc course about smart cards. For a more comprehensive book on the subject (but maybe a bit beyond what you need) I suggest this one: http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Card-Handbook-Wolfgang-Rankl/dp/0470743670

Thomas Pornin · Answer 2 · 2011-05-06 19:56:43Z

up vote 4 down vote

Depending on what you are looking for there is a lot of technologies covering the smart card topic. Some of them coming to my mind:

ISO 7816: cards with contact http://www.cardwerk.com/smartcards/smartcard_standard_ISO7816.aspx
ISO 14443: contactless smart cards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_14443
PKCS#15: Cryptographic Token Information Format Standard http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2141
PKCS#11: Cryptographic Token Interface Standard http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2133

edited May 6 '11 at 19:56

Thomas Pornin
82.7k16155289

answered May 6 '11 at 19:52

Jcs
42134

	@Thomas Great links, but I think the books linked to by @john will be easier to read. :) – SteveS May 8 '11 at 13:58
	@SteveS: hey, I am not the author of this answer ! Credits go to @Jcs. I just fixed a couple of typographic errors. – Thomas Pornin May 8 '11 at 15:39
	@Thomas Whoops! @Jcs Thanks! My bad. :) – SteveS May 11 '11 at 20:22

martin · Answer 3 · 2011-06-12 14:43:35Z

up vote 3 down vote

OpenSC project has also lots of information and further pointers. And you're most welcome to ask for help on the mailing list as well.

edited Jun 12 '11 at 14:43

answered Jun 12 '11 at 13:08

martin
24114

welcome to the site, and thanks for the link! – AviD♦ Jun 12 '11 at 13:16

3 Answers