Smart Cards

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History:

I speak for the majority, when I say everyone has watched a movie where some sort of identification card was used to obtain access to secret files, a lab testing radioactive substances, or, possibly a health insurance plan. In the modern world we live in today, technology has been simplifying our lives for as long as we can remember. Smart cards are an example of such a technology. This technology was "invented and patented in the 1970's" (Wikipedia, 2006). France, Japan, and Germany all played crucial roles during this time, as a result, "there are some disputes regarding the actual ‘inventor'" (Wikipedia, 2006). According to Wikipedia, Roland Moreno actually patented the concept of the memory card in 1974. It wasn't until 13 years later that the first form of smart cards was widely introduced in France as a system of payment for public phones. Some believed that one day smart cards will be as beneficial as computers. Of course, this "…implies that smartcards are not computers" (Saflink). At no surprise at all, smart cards, essentially, are computers in a form reduced to specific operations in microchips built into each individual card. By now you are probably wondering what the inventors had their sights on, and why smart cards are such a revolutionary step towards a simpler yet very secure identification system in almost every aspect of life.

Smartcard Variation:

The Government Smart Card Handbook states that "there are three different types of chips that can be associated with these cards: memory only, which includes serial-protected memory, wired logic and microcontroller" (Holcombe, 2004). Memory only cards offer a little more security than regular magnetic stripe cards. "Two advantages they have over magnetic stripe cards are: a) they have a higher data capacity (up to 16 kilobits (Kbits) compared with 80 bytes per track), and b) the read/write device is much less expensive" (Holcombe, 2004). These memory cards are meant to simply store data and do not perform any kind of calculations. Wired logic cards are more functional that the simple memory feature. These cards like the microcontroller design are capable of executing applications built into the file-system, besides offering encryption and authentication to its memory and content. Microcontroller cards are like tiny computers, "… [They] contain a microcontroller, an operating system, and read/write memory that can be updated many times" (Holcombe, 2004).

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