What are smart card features?

A smart card is a small, tamperproof computer. The smart card itself contains a CPU and some non-volatile storage. In most cards, some of the storage is tamperproof while the rest is accessible to any application that can talk to the card. This capability makes it possible for the card to keep some secrets, such as the private keys associated with any certificates it holds. The card itself actually performs its own cryptographic operations.

A smart card resembles a credit card in size and shape, but inside it is completely different. First of all, it has an inside -- a normal credit card is a simple piece of plastic.

Smart cards are much more popular in Europe than in the United States. In Europe, the health insurance and banking industries use smart cards extensively. Every German citizen has a smart card for health insurance. Even though smart cards have been around in their modern form for at least a decade, they are just starting to take off in the United States.

The MIFARE DESFire card is a evolution by NXP. Available with Mifare DESFire EV1 2K , Mifare DESFire EV1 4K, Mifare DESFire EV1 8K.

The MIFARE DESFire card uses a protocol compliant with ISO/IEC 14443-4. And they are three with AES (2,4 OR 8K MIFARE DESFire EV1).

MIFARE DESFire card is based on an 8051 processor with 3DES/AES crypto accelerator making very fast transactions possible.

MIFARE DESFire card with the maximal read/write distance between card and reader is 10cm(3.9 in).Actually the real distance depends on its antenna size and the field power generated by the reader.

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