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20051212 Monday December 12, 2005

 Are you feeling secure now?

Well it's good to see the government seem to be waking up to the fact that the Identity Card *might* be able to combat online fraud, and well done to the Register's John Lettuce for restoring my faith (atleast to an extent) in their analysis.

Apparently the government are looking at secure remote authentication because you'll need this to identity yourself online, apparently PIN numbers just aren't good enough. Insert comedic phrase relating to biological excretions and the fictional inhabitant of 22b Baker Street.

Disappointing to note they still seem to think that biometrics are an 'access' technology, rather than the simple 'authentication' technology they really represent. Anyone, how are biometrics going to be checked online? Can't see every one buying a biometric scanner for their PC, on top of the cost of this card, can you?

Nor can I see the 'one time password' stuff working. It's ok for limited deployments, but the cost for a NID card sized deployment means it shouldn't be on the drawing board.

Now, we've been thinking about this problem of course, and I reckon we've cracked it...

Ah, but Drew, (says my devils advocate) your solution with PKI authentication enabled smart cards requires a smart card reader on every PC doesn't it?

Well, sort of..., ok yes. But it's not as bad as you think, because we're using the new JCOP41 smart cards. These are Java enabled smart cards with a built in USB interface. In practice all that means is that the card can be wired to an USB hub directly, meaning no complex smart card reader. Stuff that could be built into a PC or given away for pennies. A strong smart card, with secure remote authentication, that doesn't cost very much to deploy and run? Now that's using your head. Entire-ID.



( Dec 12 2005, 05:19:32 PM GMT / Dec 12 2005, 05:19:32 PM GMT ) Permalink Comments [1]
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[Trackback] You're website looks very good, it was a pleasure to be on you're.

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