1.

Introduction
A smart card is a plastic card with an embedded microprocessor chip (usually small gold-
colored metal module), capable of storing, processing, calculating, managing and performing
cryptography algorithm on a significant amount of data which can be either value or
information
or both. Most smart cards resemble the size of a standard credit card [4].

Smart cards provide maximum security and convenience, and also data portability [1]. It makes
possible sophisticated and portable data processing applications, and has proven to be more
reliable than magnetic strip cards.

Figure 1 smart cards (from [4])

Assume a student at a university may use the university identification card (ID card) as a basic
form of identification to gain access to the university’s facilities, using university library,
purchase meals or decrease value from a meal plan, purchase materials and supplies from the
university store, or use university’s vending machines. Additionally, some cards may also be
used to access the university’s computer systems, network and intranet or internet. In this
situation, likelihood the contactless reader cannot detect the smart card.

The use of multiple technologies or multi applications on a single ID card can reduce card
issuance, administrative costs and provide users with the convenience of a single access ID
credential. One example of a multi application card is the student campus ID card, however the
point is that, the students should accept the new technology otherwise developing new
technology will not be successful.

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It is important to note that consumer acceptance and confidence are vital for the further
development of smart card technology. According to [4] one of the factors that have a direct
effect on technology acceptance is awareness so it is understood that for successfully
implementation of smart card technology, awareness should be addressed. In other words, in
order to increase the level of smart card usage and user adoption, the emphasis on factors that
can influence on user acceptance should be raised and based on the awareness can effect on
user satisfaction and consequently on user acceptance of smart card technology, as a result, to
be able to increase the user awareness of smart card technology, first, the user awareness should
be

examined. This paper is going to study and investigate the students’ awareness of smart card
technology and identify the features, characteristics, and advantages of smart card technology.

1.1. Definition

It is believed that smart cards offer more security and confidentiality than the other kinds of
information or transaction storage. Moreover, applications applied with smart card
technologies are illustrated which demonstrate smart card is one of the best solutions to provide
and enhance their system with security and integrity.
The smart card is one of the latest additions to the world of information technology. Similar in
size to today's plastic payment card, the smart card has a microprocessor or memory chip
embedded in it that, when coupled with a reader, has the processing power to serve many
different applications. As an access-control device, smart cards make personal and business
data available only to the appropriate users. Another application provides users with the ability
to make a purchase or exchange value. Smart cards provide data portability, security and
convenience. Smart cards come in two varieties: memory and microprocessor.
Memory cards simply store data and can be viewed as a small floppy disk with optional
security. A microprocessor card, on the other hand, can add, delete and manipulate information
in its memory on the card. Similar to a miniature computer, a microprocessor card has an
input/output port operating system and hard disk with built-in security features.
On a fundamental level, microprocessor cards are similar to desktop computers. They have
operating systems, they store data and applications, they compute and process information and
they can be protected with sophisticated security tools. The self-containment of smart card

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makes it resistant to attack as it does not need to depend upon potentially vulnerable external
resources. Because of this characteristic, smart cards are often used in different applications,
which require strong security protection and authentication

1.2. Historical Background

Smart Card has its origin in 1970s by inventors from Germany, Japan and France. Until mid
80s most of the work on Smart Cards was at the research and development level. First mass
use was for payment in French payphones.The current world population of Smart Cards is more
than 3 billion. The manufacturers of Smart Cards are Gemplus, IBM, Siemens, Telesec and
many more.

1.3. Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

Smart cards contain unique features that bring many benefits. Compared to conventional data
transmission devices such as magnetic stripe cards, smart cards offer enhanced security,
convenience and economic benefits. In addition, smart cards are highly configurable to suit
individual needs. Finally, smart cards have many advantages, among others, are briefly listed
as below:

• Smart cards are capable of performing encryption that can implement issuer's and user's
requirements for the highest degree of security. If an attacker obtains a smart card and the
related personal identification number (PIN), they will not be able to clone the card or use it to
spawn counterfeits.

• Biometric authentication methods which rely on personal physical attributes, smart cards are
used in distributing government welfare payments in order to reduce frauds and abuse.

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• Each smart card has unique serial number, for all practical purposes, it is impossible to copy
or counterfeit a smart card. Smart cards can be configured to reveal their data only to especially
qualified and authenticated terminal equipment.

• Chip is tamper resistant memory; it makes smart cards capable of true mutual authentication
in online transactions. It allows the client side of a transaction to actively verify the identity of
the server before the server identifies the client. This property assists in countering man-in-the-
middle attack. And help protect against website fraud and phishing.

• Smart cards reduce transaction costs by eliminating paper and paper handling costs and reduce
document processing costs by allowing immediate access to information stored in smart cards.
In other words, they can contain more detailed data and enable many services to be integrated.

• A smart card contains all the data needed to personalize networking, Web connection,
payments and other applications. Web servers will verify the user's identity and present a
customized Web page, an e-mail connection and other authorized services based on the data
read from a smart card. Personal settings for electronic appliances, including computers will
be stored in smart cards rather than in the appliances themselves.

• A single smartcard can perform multiple independent tasks.

• Durability and long expected life span (guaranteed by vendor for up to 10,000 read or writes
before failure).

• Smart cards can communicate with computing devices through a smart card reader.

• Information and applications on a card can be updated without having to issue new cards.

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 • Smart cards can proceed independently from a back end system or offline.

• In support of authentication process it needs two or sometimes three factors of something

users know (PIN)”, “something users have (card)” or “something users are (biometrics)”.

Disadvantages

NOT tamper proof

Can be lost/stolen
Lack of user mobility – only possible if user has smart card reader every he goes
Has to use the same reader technology
Can be expensive
Working from PC – software based token will be better
No benefits to using a token on multiple PCs to using a smart card
Still working on bugs

1.4. Characteristics

Two characteristics make smart cards especially well suited for applications in which security-
sensitive or personal data is involved. First, because a smart card contains both the data and the
means to process it, information can be processed to and from a network without divulging the
card’s data. Secondly, because smart cards are portable, users can carry data with them on the
smart card rather than entrusting that information on network storage or a backend server where
the information could be sold or accessed by unknown persons

2. Smartcard security system A smart card can restrict the use of information to an authorized
person with a password. However, if this information is to be transmitted by radio frequency
or telephone lines, additional protection is necessary. One form of protection is ciphering
(scrambling data). Some smart cards are capable of ciphering and deciphering, so the stored
information can be transmitted without compromising confidentiality. Smart cards can cipher
into billions of foreign languages and choose a different language at random every time they

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communicate. This process ensures that only authenticated cards and computers are used and
makes hacking or eavesdropping virtually impossible.

2. Theoretical Framework
Smart card is a device with major hardware constraints: low-power CPU, low data rate serial
I/O, little memory etc. Today, card technology utilizes 8 bit processors (mainly of the 6805
or 8051 family) whose memory sizes are about a few tens of kilobytes “(Urien, 2000)”,
typically 1-4 kb RAM (Random Access Memory), 32-128 kb ROM (Read Only memory) and
32-64 kb EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) at least, with
options on FLASH and FRAM (Ferroelectric Random Access Memory) as well. As the
demand for smart cards matures, the standard memory of 32 or 64 KBytes can prove a serious
limitation. A solution to this is to look at some of the design issues and techniques to
incorporate multiple memory chips in a single smart card. Gemplus had already produced a
twin card, incorporating two unconnected chips in a single card. Other approaches include the
use of PC in conjunction with smartcard. For instance, “Blaze (1996)” proposes the use of a
powerful PC with a smart card for symmetric key encryption because the PC provides higher
encryption bandwidth.

According to “Junko (2002)”, the EEPROM used in current smart cards is reaching its
scalability limits, particularly for smart card devices built in 0.13-micron technology and
beyond. Another important application that requires memory management is the application
of biometrics. The use of biometrics within the card itself will mean that biometric features
(fingerprint, retina, voice etc) can reliably identify a person. With enhancement in memory
system, it will soon be possible to authorize the use of electronic information in smart card
using a spoken word. The use of some of these features has already been implemented in
many applications.

3. Implementation Technology and Tools

 256 bytes to 4KB RAM.

 8KB to 32KB ROM.

 1KB to 32KB EEPROM.

 Crypto-coprocessors (implementing 3DES, RSA etc., in hardware) are optional.

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  8-bit to 16-bit CPU. 8051 based designs are common.

 The price of a mid-level chip when produced in bulk is less than US$1.

4. Challenges
 System must work nation wide

 Cards are issued by the RTO

 RTO officials may not be all that “clean”

 Challans are done by police “on behalf of” RTO

 Challans are settled by the Judiciary.

 RTOs are administered by the STA

 The plastic or paper card in which the chip is embedded is fairly flexible. The larger the
chip, the higher the probability that normal use could damage it.

 The production, use and disposal of PVC plastic is known to be more harmful to the
environment than other plastics.

5. The Futures
 Health Services

 Education

 Transportation

 Welfare

 Entitlement Documents

6. Recommendations and Conclusion

Awareness is defined as “the degree to which an individual are aware about the technology”.
Awareness about technology cause users to look forward to try technology and at the same
time enjoys the various benefits that the system provides

As a real time scenario, suppose person X has received physical access card in order to use for
interior building facilities. Prior to using the access card, a friend of person X who is person Y

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(consider as an unauthorized person), needs to use the access card too, so person X shares his
or her smart card. This behavior is an invasion to intellectual property rule and regulation where
the only responsible person is person X to hold security of entire building so if anything wrong
happen in the building person X would be in charge.

In other words, awareness also refers to the effort in providing knowledge and improving
understanding of the smart card. Being aware of the technology will improve users’ judgment
and their ability in using the system in a secured manner Smart cards contain unique features
that bring many benefits. They offer enhanced security, convenience and economic benefits.
However smart card makes possible sophisticated and portable data processing applications,
and is a reliable card.

Awareness about smart card can assist people to understand the technology and it can have a
positive influence on successful applying smart card technology in society. Findings of this
study show that users are not well aware about the smart card technology. Therefore, further
investigation need to be carried out in the future to identify factors that will enhance their smart
card awareness.

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References
[1] Fancher . C. H. In Your Pocket: Smart Cards, IEEE Spectrum. 2015.

[2] Finkenzeller, K. RFID Handbook: Fundamentals and Applications in Contactless Smart

Cards and Identification, John Wiley and Sons. 2016.

[3] Government Smartcard Handbook, US General Services Administration, February 20010.

[4] Haddad, A. A New Way To Pay: Creating Competitive Advantage Through The Emv
Smart Card Standard, Gower Publishing, Ltd. 20017.

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