CODEWITHSUNDEEP
smartcardsmartcard-reader
Bryan Sosa
Bryan Sosa

Reputation: 11

Use Smart Card reader as keyboard just as in barcode scanners

I want to know if it is possible to read the information from a smart card and put it directly into the input text that is focused. This functionality is already provided by many bar codes in market nowadays, so I want to know if it is possilbe that smart cards can work in a similar way.

I am using omnikey 3021 for testing purposes.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 769

Answers (1)

guidot
guidot

Reputation: 5333

While in principle nothing blocks an approach like this, it is no solution, one would like to use for the following reasons:

  • Bar codes have an amount of information matching typical entry fields, smart cards have tens or even hundreds of kByte - which ones to choose?
  • Barcode readers disguise themselves as keyboards, which is quite appropriate. If the reader itself needs to be configured (e. g. to read a different bar code type), its done via a special bar code. Smart card readers are (despite their misleading name) fully bidirectional, so one typically sends a command to them, specifying, which information the application wants to read and then the card answers. (Magnetic stripe readers are very similar to the ones for bar code).
  • Without the keyboard disguise, some part of the application has to put the read data into the keyboard buffer - not an elegant or secure approach
  • One would likely not want that the (possibly sensitive) information may be read by any application (among other disadvantages this would allow tracking of the card holder), but prefer a solution, where the application has to authenticate itself first.
  • On the other hand a scheme like you propose has the same security as a bar code, which can easily be photocopied, i.e. none. For a hardware combination which is capable of the highest security level, when appropriately programmed, that is a pretty disappointing result.

Upvotes: 2

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