Smart Card

[jmetcalf]

I have been wondering about this for a little while now. Hopefully someone can answer my question.

Why can't a USB flash drive be used as a smart card by windows? Perhaps I do not fully understand how a smartcard functions, but could a driver be written to make a USB device load as if it were a smart card? I am using Dekart Logon and it takes care of this. But I was just curious about what keeps one from doing this natively in Windows with their built in Smartcard Interface?

[dr. wagner]

As far as I know, Logon does not emulate a smart card from a USB disk, it simply knows how to use a USB disk.

Smart cards have their own file system and structure. And if I'm not mistaken, they have a special OS as well. That's why if one tried to perform this emulation, a lot of things would probably not work.

What I'm interested in is - what would you do if you could do this?

[jmetcalf]

Thanks for the information. I suspected as much. My reasons are multiple. Mainly because USB flash devices are much cheaper than smartcards (and more widely available). I also do not run any of my workstations as administrator (local or network) which is the preferred method for the security minded. However, the Microsoft RunAs command allows you to authenticate with smartcard credentials which would save some time when performing administration tasks on multiple workstations.

[alaricd]

The reason a USB drive cannot act as a smartcard is fairly simple. SmartCards have a cryptographic processors in them, that is what makes them smart. USB drives don't, therefore they can't respond to the crypto requests made of them. SmartCards actually protect their entire filesystem, so that only access can only be gained thru the crypto processor. This is why smartcards have sizes like 32k or 64k, rather than 1 gig.

[lenchnikin]

Hi,

I have a laptop computer, Dell M6300 which has a smart card reader inside the laptop itself. I was wondering if it is possible to use my CSAT card inside this smart card reader ? Is progdvb able to use it ? or is there any other soft which is able to use this card reader ?

I use a PCTV 400e USB as a sat tuner.

Thanks.

[Alex Railean]

The readers inside Dell laptops are PC/SC compliant ones, so you can use them with any program that works with such readers (ex: any Dekart application).

I don't know what "progdvb" is, but I assume it is something that is related to controlling a satellite dish. Whether it works with PC/SC card readers - the question should be addressed to the authors of that program.