Card Technology has published an interview of me, and the good news is that I still agree with me, even after editing. Of course, I would have liked to elaborate more on some topics, and sometimes to make my views more subtle. But there is always a limit to the size of an article. One […]
Smart cards follow the trends
An article from the Smart Insights blog tells us that the smart card industry uses 16,000 tons of plastic every year, which ends up in the trash most of the time. It continues with interesting considerations about recycling. In another article from Card Technology, we learn that the US Registered Traveler smart card program, supposed […]
Contactless beer
I stepped into an article that outlines a great use of contactless payment technology. The idea is here to order drinks from an interactive table, and to use a contactless card to pay for them; it has been implemented in a bar in an English college. This does not look very interesting, until we ask […]
Defensive virtual machines
The notion of defensive virtual machine is a bit awkward. The official presentation of the Java (Card) Virtual Machine describes it as inherently secure, so the notion of defensive is a bit contradictory with this message. In fact, the notion of defensive virtual machine is the result of a long process: Virtual machines usually present […]
DRM: Good or Evil ?
When I am at the office, DRM is of course the way to go: whether we talk about large SIM cards, trusted mobile phones, or any other kind of secure mobile device, DRM is the killer applications. It will allow content to be distributed safely, and everybody will be happy. When I am at home, […]
Cloning e-passports
Bruce Shneier has pointed to another article on the security of e-passports. This one focuses on cloning, but contrarily to a previous article, which simply mentioned that cloning was possible (which is natural, since nothing is done to avoid it), the authors now look for ways to actually exploit the cloned passports. The ideas are […]
About security in evaluations
A few days ago, the final verdict was published in the trial following a plane crash that killed 87 persons in 1992. Nobody was finally condemned, as the judge estimated that they had not committed any legal fault. However, an article in today’s “Le Monde” (in French) debates on the very usefulness of such trials. […]
FIDIS study on passports
As mentioned by Bruce Schneier, FIDIS, a network of excellence on identification systems, has published the Budapest Declaration that lists security issues with the current electronic passport schemes. This is a very interesting read, as it outlines many potential issues. One of them is related to the “victim identification” threat that interests me. Since the […]
Skimming RFID Credit Cards
Bruce schneier has published an entry about the use of RFID to skim credit cards. Although I completeley agree with the fact that the use of RFID makes skimming easier, I disagree on the fact that RFID is the main issue here. For me, the source of the problem is that the applications that are […]
JC101-3C: A real application
The previous application, the counter, is interesting because we can make it evolve into some kind of an electronic purse, i.e., a real-life application. This is very nice, but the problem with this kind of real-life application (a payment application) is rather useless if you are not (at least) a bank. I therefore decide to […]