[Opensc-devel] Motives for OpenSC?

[Anders R. <and...@gm...>]

When I look into the OpenSC mailing list I wonder if something isn't fundamentally broken.

In the end (after provisioning) all smart PKI cards do more or less the same thing;
That is, performs a pretty well standardized RSA or EC operation.

Wouldn't it be a better use of resources defining a standard PKI card where the operating system
vendors provide the *single* driver instead of relying on installation of third-part SW?

With automatic updates (of OS and Token), you wouldn't be stuck with a specific design either.
The static structure of current PKI-tokens is extremely counter-productive.  There are no security
issues doing firmware updates on-the-fly; it just requires a bit more memory in order to be robust.

Naturally this wouldn't stop anybody from continuing creating "unique" cards but
a guess is that these cards would only attract a fraction of the market.

Anders