Card-centric framework - Providing I/O resources for smart cards

Abstract

The Intelligent Adjunct (IA) model, proposed by Balacheff et al in [1], is a novel paradigm for smart card applications, in which off-card resources are provided for smart cards to run application logics. This paper presents the Card-Centric Framework as an evolution of the conceptual IA model to provide a more rigorous solution for smart cards to access off-card I/O resources. It consists of a system model and a communication protocol. With the Card-Centric Framework, smart cards can run any applications that involve user interactions. A system prototype constructed with the current smart card technologies showed only reasonable performance. To cater for performance issues, another demo system that made use of enhanced smart card technologies was implemented. It not only shows a significant improvement in performance, but also proves the feasibility of the framework in the future. © 2004 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.