I've questioned the wisdom of letting on-card applets slide by the access control rules, particularly PIN protections, on data files in integrated circuit cards. Now comes a patent application that says that middleware gets to slide by too. That will teach me to think that things can't get worse! Notice that middleware convenience trumps cardholder privacy. Cheers, Scott EP1396779A2: System and method to facilitate separate cardholder and system access to resources controlled by a smart card ACTIVCARD IRELAND LIMITED This invention provides a mechanism, which allows a user's personal identification number (PIN) to operate independently from a biometric authentication system. This improvement reduces the administrative burden of having to keep a user's PIN synchronized with the PIN used to access the user's smart card (15) following successful biometric authentication. The first embodiment of the invention incorporates a cryptographic interface, which bypasses the PIN entry and allows the biometric authentication system to directly access card resources. The second embodiment of the invention provides a second system PIN having greater bit strength than the cardholder PIN. Both embodiments of the invention retrieve secrets (either a cryptographic key or system PIN) from a biometric database (60) by comparing a processed biometric sample with known biometric templates. The biometric authentication system incorporates a client-server architecture, which facilitates multiple biometric authen! tications.
_______________________________________________ Muscle mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.musclecard.com/mailman/listinfo/muscle
