do it. think it. blog it! ... a twisted world

By this coming Monday all major federal agencies are required to submit detailed implementation plans to the White House Office of Management and Budget that describe how they plan to meet the smart-card requirements outlined in Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 201 (download PDF). The 2004 presidential directive requires all federal government agencies to use smart cards to authenticate employees for access to resources. SmartCards aka Java Cards are effective... very very effective. The Java Card Development Kit, includes a complete environment in which applets written for the Java Card platform can be developed and tested. It enables developers to create applets that utilize the features of the Java Card API. Now : This technology is not something new. We've been at it for ages... Why do folks shudder with reluctance when they are given new technologies to play with? Well, ask us, and we shall show you how According to this report, Taiwan had distributed Java Cards to it's population (22 million) way back in 2003. So did Taiwan, India, China and others... (I just cannot find those reports, I shall provide you links to those reports as soon as I find them) This article that dates back to 2000 would show you that we truly are the early adopters of this technology. So why is the federal sector still fumbling with their deadline for deployment soon approaching. and hey, The DoD nomenclature for Java Cards is CAC (Common Access Card), and who do you think is behind it ?? Well, truthfully, the peices of plastic are from Schlumberger, the card readers for windows are from ActiveCard and THE REST, By US !!! Java Card technology is one of the best secure authentication technologies for trust, privacy and verification of identity on the network, deployed in way over 500 million smart card and mobile phone environments around the world. Sun is building on this success and applying its expertise to the Windows environment though inclusion of Java Card technology support in its Java Desktop System and Java software systems. This model will not only secure access to the device (mobile handset, desktop or infrastructure), but access to network services, and ultimately access to and distribution of content. This guarantees authentication of the device, of the sender, and of content represented, helping reduce victimization through fraudulent Web sites, and e-mail spam and viruses.

SO : Andrew would be at the JavaONE 2005 conference presenting on : This was just an FYI for those that many that may forget this IMPORTANT presentation.