Both my T520 and one of my T510's have smart card readers. I purchased an ACOS5-64 card to see if I could use this to secure the Windows log-in, the hard drive, e-mail, etc. I have tried at least a half a dozen middleware trial downloads such as EID Authenticate, Charismathics, OpenSCDP, Aloaha, and a few others I can't even remember now. Nothing seems to work with this card even though the above vendors claim it does recognize this card format. I don't seem to be able to log in to the card using the global PIN using any middleware. Charismathics did generate a token but I still have no certificate or key that I can get into the card. Windows did allow me to generate a certificate and key, but no way to load it to the card. Quite honestly this is my first time with this Smart Card business and I'm not exactly up to speed on all of the intricacies of setting up one of these and using it. I naively thought i could just pop this card into the reader and a built-in Win 7 program would open and allow me to set a complex PIN and generate a certificate and keys that would allow me to authenticate into my Windows machine. Wrong. I do not want to use this in a network environment. it is strictly for my stand-alone machines. No, I don't really need it with a FPS on board, but it's just something to do to see if it can be done. Are these ACOS5-64 cards that difficult to work with? This one is from ACS. I suppose I will have to purchase the developers kit to get this running, unless there is another type of card that is easier to work with. Anyone with experience doing this sort of thing?
I realize the card is new, but have you considered maybe the card is defective? Not in this context, but I've had smart cards fail on several occasions. I'm not convinced the technology is really ready for prime time.
I have considered it. Chances are slim, but I realize it could happen. I think maybe I'm going to have to use the developer software pack that is available for this card. The company does not say anything about this card being proprietary to that software, but after all of the attempts I've made I'm starting to think that this is the problem. I'll probably take up the project again after Christmas. One thing I haven't tried is using the open source client in Linux. I'll have to read up on that and give it a shot. This T520 is a dual-boot machine with Mint on the second drive.