USB vs Smart Card?

Fri Dec 29 13:29:10 CET 2006

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Hi!

Moritz Schulte schrieb:
>> Can I use a USB instead of a Smart Card?
> 
> Without further context this question does not make too much sense.  USB
> sticks (i guess that is what you mean) are completely different from
> smartcards when it comes to security solutions.
> ...
Perhaps the OP meant some USB crypto token... (eg. "Aladin eToken Pro")
There are such crypto tokens but most of them use something X.509
compatible (certificate based, PKCS#11).

If I remember correctly there exists a very small USB smartcard reader
which can be "paired" with a small form factor smartcard (like the "GSM"
ones) into one enclosure. If you take a cutter and reduce the size of a
OpenPGP card to the mentioned size and find this particular reader *and*
this reader is supported by Gnupg... then you're done! :-)

Interessting link:
[http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistir/IR-7056/Capabilities/Jun-SmartCardTech.pdf]

Salut, Jörg

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