>From: "Bettina Martelli" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I really don't understand this contraposition between >smart cards and mobile phones as "virtual" cards. >In each mobile phone there is a "real" smart card inside, >the SIM. Insofar a mobile phone ist just equivalent to >card + reader + some logic + modem.
You are right. This is how things are today. >The smard cards manufacturers also produce the SIMs. >The chips are the same. The market is the same. >Where is the difference? The coming generation of mobile phones have a cryptographic processor and associated secure storage that is mounted on the "motherboard" or as I believe, will eventually become a part of the main processor itself. The reason for this is that it is almost impossible to maintain full OS integrity without having at least one hardware protected "master key" and a boot process in ROM. This container will not be owned by the operator but by the handset owner. The container will be able to store and generate keys for essentially any amount of independent CAs. It is likely to be FIPS-140-X certified and will be able to sign data showing that during certificate requests. The anticipated built-in support for WLAN in both phones and PCs, make this unit a very powerful replacement for discrete smart cards. The need for card specific software drivers in PCs becomes zero as phone devices will only work with high-level protocols such as HTTP + PKCS #10 etc. Is this a smart card? Well, it builds on similar principles but it has few if any links to 7816 etc. It is rather a "smart device". cheers, Anders R _______________________________________________ Muscle mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.musclecard.com/mailman/listinfo/muscle
