On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 9:40 AM, Giuliano Bertoletti <g...@symbolic.it> wrote: > Hello Nikos, > just a few notes. > The pkcs#11 standard adresses cryptographic devices in general, not only > smart-cards which might (or might not) have a single slot. > Cryptographic devices such HSMs are capable of supporting many many slots. > Slot can also be added and removed at wish.
And this is exactly the reason why they shouldn't be used for object identification and usage (the typical use-case of PKCS #11). > They're used, for example, in multi user remote signatures where you setup a > server, connect it to a device, and have thousands (even millions sometime) > of users remotely operate the device. > Typically each user has a slot assigned which is protected with its own pin. I don't fully understand the use-case but I don't really see that a mainstream and neither good example of PKCS #11 usage. You lower all the security of the PKCS #11 to security of PIN over the network? A hardware token should imply proximity and visibility to the token IMO. What is the point to have a hardware token in US to sign for me while I'm in europe? How do I know it is my token or someone else isn't signing with it? > The correct way to locate a particular user key is for the application to > query by token name (returned by C_GetTokenInfo), but this might require a > lookup that is beyond the capability of the engine. Why not? In the millions slot case you mentioned it might be a problem iterating through the available slots, but in typical cases this is not a stopper. regards, Nikos _______________________________________________ opensc-devel mailing list opensc-devel@lists.opensc-project.org http://www.opensc-project.org/mailman/listinfo/opensc-devel
