[6086] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: a smartcard of a different color
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vin McLellan)
Wed Nov 17 15:23:01 1999
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To: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com>,
Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>, Will Price <wprice@cyphers.net>
From: Vin McLellan <vin@shore.net>
Cc: Digital Bearer Settlement List <dbs@philodox.com>, cryptography@c2.net
Message-Id: <E11o8hx-0002wZ-00@nautilus.shore.net>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 12:17:26 -0500
Dan Geer <geer@world.std.com> reported:
>> Yesterday I saw a smartcard of a different color. In particular,
>> it is the smartcard chip but in a key-ring thing that is more or
>> less identical to the Mobil SpeedPass except that it has a USB
>> connector on one end and a keyring hole on the other. Total length
>> circa 1.25"; color purple; maker Rainbow Technologies. As my pal
>> Peter Honeyman said in showing it to me, "There are already all
>> the USB ports we'll ever need." I'd point out that without the
>> 7816 requirement for flex a whole lot more memory is a trivial
>> add-on and that USB is not a bandwidth bottleneck.
>> ref: http://www.rainbow.com/ikey/graphics/iKey_DS.pdf
Steve Bellovin <smb@research.att.com> commented:
>Folks I've talked to about products like that say that USB ports aren't
>designed for that many insertion/removal cycles. (We'll ignore, for now, all
>of the PCs that have their USB ports in the back, where you can't get at
>them easily. One could always add on a hub.)
To which I add, wistfully:
Same problem that the PCMCIA cards had (in a notable contrast to any
smartcard reader.) I presume that it would have cost more to design these
ports to withstand multitiple daily insertions, and the cost/benefits ratio
just weren't there (or this sort of use didn't seem lucrative enough to
factor into the equation.)
Suerte,
_Vin
