Securing Your Tablet PC with a Smart Card

A smart card resembles nothing so much as a credit card, except it’s not quite as much fun (or nearly as dangerous in shopping malls). Smart cards are used to store sign-in information (such as passwords), as well as personal information and encryption keys that keep what’s on your computer safe.

Tip Smart cards have myriad business uses. They can store data such as patient or client records, or serve as a payment mechanism by storing electronic cash that can be used to make payments.

Windows XP for Tablet PC supports smart-card security because it uses public-key encryption, a method of providing secure identification. Several models of Tablet PC come equipped with a smart-card reader; others can have one added on by inserting a PC card.

Get his prints . . .

Another interesting possibility for keeping your Tablet PC secure is a biometric PC card such as the one offered by Compaq as an accessory to its Tablet PC TC1000. With this addition, you put your finger on a tiny scanner on the card, and then insert the card into the slot. Your fingerprint is compared with your registered fingerprint. If it matches, you can finish logging on. If it doesn’t, you’re just not yourself today. . . .

Remember The smart card, once set up, must be inserted into a card reader slot before you can start up the computer. Without the smart card, the boot sequence never completes itself — foiling the attempts of unscrupulous types to take stuff off your computer, and making the computer itself pretty useless to them (serves ’em right).

And it’s just about impossible for anybody to retrieve personal information or encryption keys off of a smart card.

Technical Stuff If you see a use for smart-card technology in your life, you can buy a PC card to use in your PCMCIA slot. Some available smart-card readers also connect to a USB port.