WELCOME to another 2600 Report. Several "issues" (or whatever you wish to call them) back, I did a little research on Smart Cards, their suppliers, and the companies who have their hands in the market. At the time, I figured it would be years before I was able to get to play with a real Smart Card here in the U.S. Imagine my surprise, when I see an advertisement for them in a throwaway newspaper insert! Now that they are here to play with, more data may be forthcoming.
IF you have not checked out the latest issue of 2600, or their web site, you might want to do so. They are having some financial problems because their distributor embezzled funds... Now would be a great time to buy yourself a T-Shirt or hat or subscription.

For mere vengance, I would do nothing...but for the security of the future I would do everything." - James Abram Garfield April 15, 1865

What’s up with these cash cards?

In hopes that the procedure and "user interface" are important, I will detail it here.

Well, the story goes something like this... I was browsing the Sunday paper looking for potential Christmas gifts when I came to the Thrifty Drugs ad. They were hyping their gift certificate "cash cards" and included a miniature picture of one. My eyes were immediately drawn to the picture and the metal-looking contacts on this cash card. "Are these the smart cards I have been hearing so much of, but have never seen?," I asked myself.

I ventured down to Thrifty and bought myself (and several 2600 friends) a $10 card. The cashier had NO IDEA what the hell I was talking about and had to call over a manager, who had to call over another manager. Eventually, they found some "blank cards" in the back room and brought them up to the checkout stand. They punched a few things into their register (apparently, some of it was trial-and-error, as no one had ever done this before). My eyes wandered to the new VeriFone credit card/ATM card reader that was stationed at the checkout stand. It was in two pieces--one box that sat atop another. The upper box was the standard machine everyone has seen in nearly every supermarket: display screen on top, a keypad below the screen, and a card slot running along the right side of the box. The box this device was placed upon was almost completely covered except for a smaler angled card slot that pointed directly at me.

My money was taken (via Credit Card through the standard VeriFone box). The smart cards were then inserted, one at a time, into the smaller slot (in the direction of the arrow printed on the card). Each time, the message "Card Uninitialized" appeared on the display screen until a key was hit on the register, after which the card was instantly "programmed" to $10 ("$10 .00" appeared on the display screen).

Each time a card is inserted into the small slot, the dollar value is instantly displayed on screen, which leads me to believe that the "cash" is really stored on the card--as opposed to a hybrid version that may, for instance, store an account number on the card, which is then referenced on some "central computer" elsewhere in the country. It just seems to be a little to difficult and expensive to run and maintain a T1 or ISDN connection at each store simply for the convienence of instant account balance lookup. At the time, I forgot to ask if cash can only be deducted from the card (possible evidence of some kind of destructive or write-once-read-many hardware), or if it is possible to add more money to the balance (possible evidence of EEPROM-like hardware).

References
VeriFone can be found at http://www.verifone.com. They were recently bought by HP. Their site seems to be rather shallow, but a select few links lead to more juicy information--one hint: go directly to the Site Map. Try http://www.verifone.com/solutions/smartcards/html/smart_card_faq.html for their Smart Card FAQ. Learn about their products and read their White Papers at http://www.verifone.com/products/html/product_library.html. They have a decent Transaction Security White Paper (in Adobe Acrobat format) at: http://www.verifone.com/pdf/WP_Transaction_Security.pdf.

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