Smart Cards

Book excerpt: A complete nuts-and-bolts guide to designing, building, and managing the smart card system that's right for your company Already a well-established medium of exchange in Europe, smart card technology has made major inroads in the North American market in the past few years. Visa and Mastercard are committed to replacing credit cards with them over the next five years, and Microsoft is racing to use them for e-commerce. Clearly, the time for asking "Why?" regarding smart cards has passed. The important question companies now should be asking themselves is "How?": how to plan, how to develop, how to implement, and how to manage the smart card system that is right for our company? This book provides complete, unbiased answers to these and all your technical and business questions about smart card systems. Dreifus and Monk guide you step-by-step through the entire process of selecting, designing, building, and managing a smart card application tailored to your business. They supply numerous checklists to help guarantee that you make the correct technical decisions during each phase of the process. And they include real-world case studies illustrating successful smart card implementations in a variety of industries, including banking, manufacturing, entertainment, healthcare, and transportation. Crucial topics covered in detail include: * Smart card architectures and standards * Security and encryption * Smart card operating systems * Smart card application design and development * Development tools * Testing and certification Smart Cards arms you with everything you need to know to make informed decisions about the smart card system that's right for your company.