On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 5:24 PM, Martin Paljak <mar...@martinpaljak.net> wrote: > Hello, > > > On May 6, 2011, at 17:16 , Jean-Michel Pouré - GOOZE wrote: >> >> I wonder if there is not a problem in shared more or if we should not >> ask users to use exclusive mode only. > > For the sake of usability, exclusive mode should only be used *if needed*. > From security perspective, it does not really matter, because if your host is > compromised, such software tricks are worthless. But daily smart card usage > usually means using different applications. >
This is incorrect. Computer may be compromised in so many levels. It is true that if someone has total (root) control over the computer, he may do whatever. However, other none privileged user MUST NOT be able to gain access to resources used by other users. Well, you can argue: if I modify the access to readers to a specific user, then no other user can access the device anyway. If this is enough for users, let it be. I don't think it is enough, as this state is not much different than using file based cryptographic. I know we do not agree on this, but I have never seen hardware cryptography using any similar assumption. Some References: http://www.mail-archive.com/opensc-devel@lists.opensc-project.org/msg05689.html http://www.opensc-project.org/opensc/ticket/186 http://www.opensc-project.org/pipermail/opensc-devel/2008-December/011525.html http://www.opensc-project.org/pipermail/opensc-user/2008-July/002561.html http://www.opensc-project.org/mailman/private/opensc-internal/2008-June/000335.html Discussion with Nils 5/2008, a prototype option, we agreed this is fundemental problem of the project, but neither had resources to actually solve it. Regards, Alon Bar-Lev. _______________________________________________ opensc-devel mailing list opensc-devel@lists.opensc-project.org http://www.opensc-project.org/mailman/listinfo/opensc-devel
