Submitted 13 hours ago by BonkTheAnnoyed@lemmy.blahaj.zone to technology@lemmy.world
I recently picked up an older but perfectly adequate HP Z Book Firefly with a built-in smart card reader and I’m wondering what possible use is this little bit of tech? Can I, like, auth with my credit card or whatever? (mostly joking, I briefly looked at the PAM config for that and prefer my current hobbies lol)
New-ish EU national IDs have NFC capability and certificate in them so you can probably sign something with that if you figure out how
This is one of the more common uses of them, but the tech works with other card types.
That said I’ve never seen a company invest in the security infrastructure for using smart cards.
Your laptop is a cash counter.
leaves the laptop alone with a sheet of paper, a pen, and a bag of cash
comes back 4 hours later you haven’t done anything!
sets the money atop the laptop
ohh, cash counter, I get it now…
maybe works with pam_usb . it works with most removable media.
You could get a bunch of the cheap EEPROM type smart cards and use them to launch programs or play music or something.
tias@discuss.tchncs.de 3 hours ago
You can store a private/public key pair on a smart card and use it for digitally signing or encrypting things like email, or just for authenticating to your PC. Some banks also support authentication by client certificate; web browsers can access your smart card for authenticating to web sites.