Smart cards are secure tokens that have provided security services to a wide range of applications for over thirty years. Along with other technology advances, smart card technology has changed dramatically as well. However, its communication standards, largely unchanged, do not match with those of mainstream computing, which has limited its success in the Internet age. For nearly a decade, researchers have sought to connect smart cards to the Internet. The benefits are plentiful, including providing services over the Internet and eliminating smart card specific infrastructure. A key to this quest is to equip smart cards with a secure and effective networking capability. Various approaches have been taken to find this key. There is still much work to do. This paper reviews years of research in this area, looks at the state of the art, and analyzes and compares various networking options for smart cards. Furthermore, the paper outlines remaining technical challenges for making smart cards a part of the Internet world. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
