Do smart-card readers support all smart-cards models?

Question

Do smart-cards require a different kind of reader depending on the model or do all readers support all kinds of smart-cards? Assuming I have a specific card model in mind, how do I find out what kind of reader I need?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 23 '11 at 15:19

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Depends on the chip used, have a look at:

edited Aug 23 '11 at 15:19

Bo Persson

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answered Aug 22 '11 at 18:40

Martin

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Are you saying it depends on the chip manufacturer? Or on the interface type? Meaning, can I reasonably assume that all contact-chips support IEC 7816? – Gili Aug 22 '11 at 20:04
it depends on the type of chip used. e.g. certain chips have hardware security features added, which will not be used/read by standard readers. i am not really into the hardware stuff, but with a simple scm reader i was able to read sim cards, voucher cards, key cards, ec/maestro cards. of course you still need the crypt setup to access usefull data. what cards do you want to read out? or do you want to use an auth mechanism with your machine? – Martin Aug 22 '11 at 21:02
I want to use contact cards with public-key encryption that is PKCS #11 compatible. – Gili Aug 24 '11 at 01:26

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 23 '11 at 04:37

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The main difference with contact cards is synchronous memory cards vs asynchronous microprocessor cards.

Most "interesting" smart cards are asynchronous microprocessor cards (like SIM cards, bank cards, electronic ID badges etc).

Contact cards and contactless cards are a whole different story though.

answered Aug 23 '11 at 04:37

Martin Paljak

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So in theory, there are only two kinds of readers for contact smart-cards? – Gili Aug 24 '11 at 01:27

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 04 '20 at 14:45

Somewhat surprised, to see a pointer-only answer as accepted, I supplement the following:

While there is a good chance, that a card and a reader will be able to communicate, watch out for these criteria:

Maximum data field size; an important boundary is support of extended length APDUs (> 255 byte), required for 2048 bit RSA signatures
For contact-based cards: external clock (3.57, 4.91, more than 5 MHz)and supported communication rates. Note that the default is just 9600 bit/s, so even reading a moderately sized file may become noticeable.
Match of supported protocols between card and reader (T=0, T=1; T=CL)
For contactless thoroughly check before; there are different frequency bands and incompatible protocols within the same frequency (ISO 14443 type A and type B)

Do smart-card readers support all smart-cards models?

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