Smart Card Talk

February 2006 • Volume 11 Number 2

Executive Director's Letter

Dear members and friends of the Alliance:

For a large number of people, this is the first time that you are receiving an issue of Smart Card Talk, the free monthly electronic newsletter of the Smart Card Alliance. If you are, it might be as a result of your recent visit to the Smart Card Alliance web site where you requested a free copy of one of our industry white papers and reports. When you registered on our site to receive the report, you checked a box indicating that you wished to subscribe to our newsletter and other announcements. For some of you, several months have passed since you registered. My apologies for the delay in getting you added to the distribution list. It had been several months since we looked at the pending subscriber list and during that time, the number of new subscribers had reached nearly 2,000 people. It is wonderful that so many people are reading our reports and white papers and I hope that you will enjoy receiving this industry newsletter as well. If you wish to unsubscribe at any time, simply follow the instructions at the bottom of the newsletter. We only want to send this to you in the future as long as you still wish to receive it.

The big news in February for me was our participation in the RSA Conference 2006 in San Jose, CA last week. Several things about this year's event highlighted the significant changes that are taking place in the smart card industry in the United States and demonstrated some of the fundamental Smart Card Alliance achievements as we continue to promote the understanding, adoption, use and widespread application of smart card technology in North America and Latin America. For those readers who are not familiar with this conference, it is the world's leading information security conference and expo, with over 275 exhibitors and more than 11,000 attendees. It also draws the biggest names in the industry as speakers to present their vision of the market, led by Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft, Art Coviello, CEO of RSA Security, Scott McNealy, Chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems, and John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems. The exhibit floor includes every IT security software and hardware vendor who is anyone in the marketplace and the conference sessions feature the highest caliber speakers in the industry.

In past years, the topic that didn't get much attention at this show was token-based security technology, namely smart cards. All of that changed dramatically this year. The Smart Card Alliance had something to do with that change in a number of ways. One major smart card advance that we did not have anything to do with was what Bill Gates and his Microsoft team presented and demonstrated at his annual keynote address. This year, Bill mentioned smart cards about 7 or 8 times and even demonstrated a new Microsoft beta release, called the Certificate Lifecycle Manager. This new software streamlines the provisioning, configuration, and management of digital certificates and smart cards and will dramatically simplify the way smart card credentials are managed in Microsoft's enterprise software in the future. At the core of the beta release is a product from Alacris, a Smart Card Alliance member company that was acquired by Microsoft in 2005. Not surprisingly, the two other well-known information technology companies, Sun Microsystems and Cisco, recently became members of the Smart Card Alliance, joining other leading companies such as RSA Security, VeriSign, and IBM who have been long-time members.

Bringing Alliance members' smart card technology solutions to the marketplace at important industry events like this is something that the Smart Card Alliance has done exceptionally well. At this year's RSA Conference, we organized a 20' x 30' Smart Card Pavilion where 12 member organizations showcased everything from smart cards to readers to security chips to biometrics and encryption. The shared space had high visibility with large overhead signage and special mention in the program guide. The booth space was filled with interested people looking at the technology and learning about smart card applications during the 3-day exhibition. We have already reserved our space for next year when the conference returns to San Francisco.

One of the most significant accomplishments for the Alliance was having our Educational Institute smart card workshop included in the pre-conference RSA tutorial sessions. This is the first year that RSA has allowed any smart card-related topics to be taught in their tutorials and chose the Smart Card Alliance as the trusted source to deliver this program. Our full day session, entitled Smart Cards and IT: Looking at the Edge of a Secure Network, was well attended during the three 2-hour sessions. We are now making arrangements to take this tutorial on the road - next stop being Security Week Brazil, in Sao Paulo on March 27th.

One final mark on the RSA Conference was made by two of our industry-focused councils. The Healthcare Council was invited to deliver a one-hour conference session on Smart Cards in Healthcare. Council members presented examples of smart card applications from a HIPAA perspective and from both inside and outside the health service provider network, including electronic medical records, personal health cards, and government entitlement programs. Also, the newly formed Identity Council released their first white paper during the conference, The Top Ten Hot Identity Topics. The Identity Council report and the new Healthcare Council report, Smart Card Applications in the U.S. Healthcare Industry, are available on the Alliance web site and both papers were well received by the many people who visited the information desk at the Smart Card Pavilion.

With the RSA Conference behind us, we can now shift our focus on our 5th Annual Smart Cards in Government Conference, being held from April 18-20, 2006 in Arlington, VA. This event keeps getting bigger every year, and it is hard to believe that we are holding our fifth conference already. The government market remains a hot topic as HSPD-12 projects move toward conformance testing, procurement and implementation phases. Our role is to foster strong government and industry engagement to deliver interoperable solutions that meet the federal standards in the timeline set forth by the HSPD-12 mandates. This year's conference will shift attention to the implementation issues that government agencies face in the next few months. Besides HSPD-12, we will give equal time to other government initiatives, such as ePassports, Registered Traveler, REAL ID and driver's license reforms, and US VISIT programs. The exhibit hall will be filled to capacity with members showcasing a wide range of products, including the latest contactless smart cards, biometrics, card issuance and management solutions, and other innovative technologies and services that address expanding federal and state government smart card market needs. There is still time to reserve a space in the exhibit hall or register to attend the full conference. Early registration discounts end on March 3, 2006. I will have more on the upcoming conference in next month's newsletter.

Randy Vanderhoof, Executive Director