Tuesday, September 07, 2010

[ljqgvzte] Contactful smart cards

Contactless smart cards have many disadvantages.  Without a battery, they lack enough power to do any useful cryptography.  With a battery, they may run out of battery.  They are also vulnerable to remote activation or snooping.

Step back a generation and reconsider contact smart cards with actual electrodes.  They have none of these disadvantages.  I'm imagining a USB (or Micro, USB etc.) form factor or a four conductor 3.5mm plug.  It can be a dongle on your keychain, not actually a card, and can be very small, not needing an antenna.

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