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The precursors to todays smart cards were the plastic credit cards used as identity tokens in the retail financial marketplace. These tokens, when introduced, represented a significant improvement in the ability of merchants to accept payment in an abstract form (essentially on credit) from customers whose identity they could not personally vouch for. The credit card represented (and actually still does) a certification of identity and financial situation from an issuer functioning as a trust broker. (This concept of a trust broker is examined in more detail in Chapter 9, Smart Cards and Security.)
In the trust infrastructure provided by the credit cardalthough a merchant might not be inclined to extend credit to an unknown customerit was reasonable for the merchant to trust the issuer of a credit card, in no small part because of the known financial strength of the issuer and financial agreements entered into when the merchant became certified to accept the (credit card) tokens of the card issuer.
As the convenience of credit cards became established and their use more accepted, it became highly desirable to achieve an unprecedented level of interoperability among cards from different issuers and transaction equipment from a variety of vendors in merchants stores around the world.
The start of the journey toward worldwide interoperability lay in the establishment of international standards regarding first the cards themselves, then the equipment that would work with them and with the environments in which they would be used. The venue of choice for establishing such standards is the International Standards Organization (ISO). In some fields of technical activity, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) collaborates with the ISO in the development of standards. Similarly, in the United States, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) functions as a primary standards setting body. In the following discussion, some standards are ISO standards and others are joint ISO/IEC/ANSI standards accepted by all three bodies.
This chapter and Chapter 4, Smart Card Commands, review some of the foundation standards on which smart cards are based. This is not an exhaustive review of the standards affecting smart cards or of the individual standards addressed. Rather, it is a moderately detailed overview of the characteristics of smart cards that are affected by standard specifications; it will give you the tools you need to identify the specific standards you can consult for a complete understanding.
ISO/IEC (and in some instances, ANSI) standards have been established to fully describe plastic identification cards. The various standards have evolved over time and are found in a variety of ISO/IEC/ANSI classifications, the more pertinent of which are listed in Table 3.1.
ISO/IEC Standard | Title |
---|---|
ISO/IEC 78101995-08-15 | Identification CardsPhysical Characteristics |
ANSI/ISO/IEC 7811-11995: Part 1 | Identification CardsRecording Technique Embossing |
ANSI/ISO/IEC 7811-21995: Part 2 | Identification CardsRecording Technique Magnetic Stripe |
ANSI/ISO/IEC 7811-31995: Part 3 | Identification CardsRecording Technique Location of Embossed Characters on ID-1 Cards |
ANSI/ISO/IEC 7811-41995: Part 4 | Identification CardsRecording Technique Location of Read-Only Magnetic TracksTracks 1 and 2 |
ANSI/ISO/IEC 7811-51995: Part 5 | Identification CardsRecording Technique Location of Read-Write Magnetic TracksTrack 3 |
ANSI/ISO/IEC 7812-11993 | Identification CardsIdentification of Issuers Part 1: Numbering System |
ANSI/ISO/IEC 78131995 | Identification CardsFinancial Transaction Cards |
ISO 7816-1 | Identification CardsIntegrated Circuit(s) Cards with ContactsPhysical Characteristics |
ISO 7816-2 | Identification CardsIntegrated Circuit(s) Cards with Contacts Dimensions and Location of the Contacts |
ISO 7816-3 | Identification CardsIntegrated Circuit(s) Cards with ContactsElectronic Signals and Transmission Protocols |
ISO 7816-3 Amendment 1 | Protocol type T=1, Asynchronous Half Duplex Block Transmission Protocol |
ISO 7816-3 Amendment 2 | Revision of Protocol Type Selection |
ISO 7816-4 | Identification CardsIntegrated Circuit(s) Cards with ContactsInterindustry Commands for Interchange |
ISO 7816-5 | Identification CardsIntegrated Circuit(s) Cards with ContactsNumber System and Registration Procedure for Application Identifiers |
ISO 7816-6 | Identification CardsIntegrated Circuit(s) Cards with ContactsInterindustry Data Elements |
ISO 11771985 | Information ProcessingCharacter Structure for Start/Stop and Synchronous Character-Oriented Transmission |
A seminal specification that ultimately leads to smart cards is ISO/IEC 7810: Identification CardsPhysical Characteristics. This standard defines nominal physical characteristics for three types of identification cards, labeled ID-1, ID-2, and ID-3. Card type ID-1 deals with the generally accepted size and shape of a credit card or smart card and is the primary focus of this discussion. The ID-2 and ID-3 card types are simply larger sizes, but with the same physical characteristics as ID-1 card types.
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