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Interview: Smart card guru answers questions

<em>JavaWorld</em> talks with Patrice Peyret, founding president and CEO of Integrity Arts

By Rinaldo Di Giorgio, JavaWorld.com, 12/01/97

Few people know as much about smart cards as Patrice Peyret, founding president and CEO of Integrity Arts, a start-up company focused on smart cards, which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in September.

Peyret, a renowned smart card expert, has been working with smart cards since 1987, when he worked for Thompson Consumer Electronics on the world's first set-top box equipped with a smart card. More than 3 million of these BSkyB set-top boxes are in use in the UK. More recently (1989 to 1995), Peyret was head of research and development for Gemplus, the world's largest smart card company.

As a result of Sun's acquisition of Integrity Arts, Peyret is now Director of JavaSoft's Consumer Transactions group, which focuses on both JavaCards and Java Commerce Clients -- electronic commerce software running on PCs, network computers (NCs), and possibly set-top boxes.

In late October, JavaWorld columnist Rinaldo Di Giorgio talked at length with Peyret about the state of smart cards, the Java cards, and his latest projects. Read on to learn Peyret's answers to the following questions:

1. What are smart cards?
2. How do they work?
3. Are there any significant applications of smart cards?
4. Can you explain why smart cards are not common in the U.S.?
5. So smart cards have been around for quite a long time?
6. What is JavaCard?
7. So JavaCard has had an effect on the smart card industry?
8. So developing applications for smart cards was difficult?
9. How is JavaCard going to improve this?
10. Is there any danger that JavaCard is a passing fad?
11. How do you identify an application that would benefit from using a smart card?
12. Why are smart cards always associated with security?
13. You mentioned the carrying of personal data...
14. Is there room for small developers in the smart card world?
15. Does JavaCard have any competition?
16. Should Microsoft consider licensing JavaCard?
17. What is JavaSoft doing to ensure access to smart cards on many platforms.
18. How will multiple applications co-exist on JavaCard?
19. What is the difference between OpenCard and PC/SC?
20. What are some of these guidelines?
21. What is your group working on at JavaSoft?
22. What are some of the tools and when will they be available?
23. Why are you so sure JavaCard is going to be the largest deployed computing platform in the world?

JavaWorld: What are smart cards?
Peyret: A smart card is typically a "credit card" sized form factor with a small-embedded computer chip. This card-computer can be programmed to perform tasks and store information. There are different types of smart cards: memory cards, processor cards, electronic purse cards, security cards, and JavaCards.

JW: How do they work?
Peyret: Very simply, a smart card that has a processor is inserted into a smart card reader (commonly called a card terminal) and is available for use. The software wishing to communicate with the reader needs to send some commands to manage the reader, things like power up and transfer command to card. The commands sent to cards can be custom, but we prefer to use the standard ISO 7816 specifications, which define command formats in great detail. Many different types of readers exist and soon we hope to see them shipped as standard equipment on PCs. They are not as uncommon as you think: There are several million readers deployed in homes in the United States in the Digital Satellite Systems (DSS) units.

 

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