Contactless Smart Cards, RFID, Payment, Transit and Security

Dutch charity funding open source smart card

Monday, June 23, 2008

In order to better protect information stored on smart cards, NLnet Foundation is giving Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands more than $200,000 to develop an open source software model for the microprocessor cards, according to Computerworld UK.

The plan is to publish the code and research for peer review. Companies will then be able to license the products under the GNU General Public License.


One of the researchers goals is to use more complex encryption without having the transaction take longer. Typically, the more complex the encryption the longer then transaction take to process.

New security and systems are needed after the Mifare card was allegedly hacked by researchers. The Mifare classic chip has been used in up to 2 billion cards for building access and public transportation.

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Global communications agency Isobar has announced the winners of Create 32, Silicon Valley’s first hackathon exploring NFC technology on commercially available smart phones.

The event, held at APPNATION III from November 30 - December 1, 2011, attracted more than 40 developers and creators to develop new uses for NFC technology and produced seven working prototypes of applications in 32 hours. Each app was critiqued by a panel of NFC experts from Nokia, Google, eBay-PayPal et al. on its ability to impact a brand, business or consumer, its potential viability and its ability to change the way users experience the world.

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DigitalPersona announced the release of its new fingerprint feature extraction technology called FingerJetFX. Unlike most releases from the company, however, the FingerJetFX solution has been release with an Open Source Edition in addition to its commercially available edition.

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Every year millions of dollars worth of value on MTA MetroCards is either lost or discarded. A group of students from New York University’s Interactive Communications Program have devised a platform that takes this remaining value and put it to some good use.

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The Dutch Ministry of Defense (MoD) has chosen Identive’s SmartFold smart card readers to provide secure remote network access for its employees.

The agency has a lot of restricted and sensitive data that has particular management requirements. The MoD felt that the Identive contact smart card reader would provide the desired level of security, yet be flexible enough to incorporate into the existing network security infrastructure.

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Inside Secure has launched a free, open-source NFC protocol stack for Google’s new Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” mobile operating system.

According to Inside, Open NFC 4.3.3 is compliant with the Ice Cream Sandwich release Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) for NFC, and supports all the latest Android NFC features, including Android Beam and WiFi Direct pairing connection.

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The National Institute of Standards and Technology announced a competition to award a approximately $10 million for pilot projects to accelerate progress toward improved systems for interoperable, trusted online credentials that go beyond simple user IDs and passwords.

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