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Learn to use software components to deploy applications using Java Cards

A URL-based approach for deploying smart cards on different systems

By Mike Montgomery, JavaWorld.com, 10/01/99

Java Cards provide a platform for the easy deployment of multifunctional smart-card applications. Smart cards are very popular in Europe but in the U.S. have failed to attract the same level of visibility. How can the U.S. catch up to Europe on smart-card use? One way is to develop applications for smart cards that provide consumers and corporate users truly convenient and secure methods to access services. With the right kind of smart-card applications, users will be able to avoid the tedious process of having to repeatedly type information on Web pages in order to do secure transactions. In some countries, smart cards have replaced the need for cash, credit cards, or debit cards. Yet in the U.S. we are still struggling with upgrading point-of-sale terminals in stores so as to accept smart cards.

Besides the inconvenience of having to navigate multiple layers of pages on the Web in order to carry out secure transactions, another example of outdated and unfriendly technology is the phone system. Often we are reduced to repeating standard information over the phone -- such as name, address, phone number -- or, worse yet, we must actually mail out that information once we've begun a transaction over the phone. Wouldn't it be nice if you could simply send the data from your smart card? (Smart cards would also solve the problem of neck and shoulder pain from having to balance the phone long periods of time!) Smart cards can provide a sophisticated means of doing secure transactions -- and in the convenient form of a personal, secure, portable storage device. Smart cards give developers the opportunity to create convenient and much-needed services to your users.

There have been many smart card trials and pilots by many forward-thinking companies and some not-so-forward-thinking companies. Yet few of these trials have generated any excitement or additional value to the consumer. The trials generally lacked integration with the Web; in other words, you could not use the card for form-filling, authentication-affinity programs. What this means is that you would still have to enter form information over and over again, prove your identity with less secure methods such as passwords or worse yet social security numbers, and, if you get a coupon, you have to print it out and take it to the store instead of just taking the digital bits of the coupon that have been magically put on your smart card.

[co: The following paragraph would benefit from an introductory sentence, a lead-in from the previous paragraph to this one in order to keep the reader apprised of where you're going with your ideas.]

In order to deploy Java Card-capable platforms, you need to be able to load an application on the card and write an application for the card that works with some network-based service. Smart cards can also be used for offline transactions, which is how the Digital Satellite receiver demonstrated in this article works. The material from this article allow you to build both.

 

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