Internet-enabled Smart Card Agent Environment and Applications

Abstract

The introduction of smart card technology offers an alternative for user authentication and storage medium for data that require both high security as well as location transparency. With a considerably large storage that can be protected from unauthorized access and tampering, and the ability to compute custom software routines including cryptographic algorithms, smart card represents a trusted medium for self-identification and secured information storage that we can carry around with us (Effing and Rankl, 1996). On the other hand, intelligent software agents represent a new software methodology that starts to gain wide acceptance. While they are possibly the best candidates as an end user’s personal assistant in the computer world, they usually are not designed with high security and location transparency in mind. This has greatly limited their ability to function as ‘personal representatives’ in the world of the Internet. The proposed smart card agent environment is an effort to bridge these two technologies to produce a viable solution for personalized Internet-based services and solutions. Introduction of software agent technology into traditional smart card applications will bring in new intelligence to make it smarter. The level of security and location transparency in the smart card technology will greatly enhance the usability of agents in the Internet world. With the combination of these two technologies, many Internet-based applications can provide a personalized services with minimum user interactions. This will promote the utilization of Internet-based services and solutions.