Take a look at Dallas Semiconductor's Crypto iButton family. FIPS level 2 and 3 certified DSA/SHA services with a JVM in a large watch battery form factor, under $50 for FOB and interface. (Disclaimer - I don't work there, I've just used their products for many years now and have designed them into a dozen odd products.) Many interesting places use these as personal certificate storage to authenticate access. At 02:18 AM 9/13/00 -0400, Ray Dillinger wrote:

Hmmm. These devices could be useful, even without using them as credit cards. I wonder if you could buy a batch of them from the manufacturer with custom software installed?

It would sure be nice if I could make a physical key token that would render my system completely useless if the key were, say, in my wallet at work, and the computer found its way to, say, the hands of someone carrying out an illegal search and seizure.

likewise it would be nice to store PGP keys on, etc -- bits of data that you want to maintain complete physical control of at all times.

"Oppression is sometimes best fought with the tools that the oppressors have built for their own use."

I want a PGPdisk you can boot from.

Bear

On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, A. Melon wrote:

...

Sep 12, 2000 - 07:27 PM

Visa USA to Launch Smart Card in the U.S. The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) - After success with its smart card in Europe and Japan, Visa is aiming squarely at the U.S. market with an upgraded version that contains more memory.

Over the next couple of weeks, Visa USA, the companys U.S. division, will be launching smart cards - microprocessors embedded in plastic -that will offer prepackaged services to be determined by its issuers.

Customers will be able to download information from their computers via special card readers. Over the next year or so, they will be able to store airline tickets, for example, and eventually use the cards as keys to their cars and homes.

The card, which has 32 kilobytes of memory, is different from Visas original version, which has mainly served as a "monetary value card," said Al Banisch, senior vice president of consumer credit products.

The new card will be available free to Visas 350 million cardholders.