by Bozho | Feb 22, 2017 | Aggregated, digital signatures, eletronic identification, Opinions, smart cards
A smart card is a device that holds a private key securely without letting it out of its storage. The chip on your credit card is a “smart card” (yup, terminology is ambiguous – the card and the chip are interchangeably called “smart card”). There are smaller USB-pluggable hardware readers that only hold the chip (without an actual card – e.g. this one). But what’s the use? This w3c workshop from several years ago outlines some of them: multi-factor authentication, state-accepted electronic identification, digital signatures. All these are part of a bigger picture – that using the internet is now the main means of communication. We are moving most of our real-world activities online, so having a way to identify who we are online (e.g. to a government, to a bank), or being able to sign documents online (with legal value) is crucial. That’s why the EU introduced the eIDAS regulation which defines (among other things) electronic identification and digital signatures. The framework laid there is aimed at having legally binding electronic communication, which is important in so many cases. Have you ever done the print-sign-scan exercise? Has your e-banking been accessed by an unauthorized person? Well, the regulation is supposed to fix these and more more issues. Two factor authentication is another more broad concept, which has a tons of sub-optimal solutions. OTP tokens, google authenticator, sms code confirmation. All these have issues (e.g. clock syncing, sms interception, cost). There are hardware tokens like YubiKey, but they offer only a subset of the features a smart card does. But it’s not just about legally-recognized actions online and two-factor...
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