Issues in Smartcard Middleware

Integration of smartcards in distributed computing environments still suffers from the lack of connectivity and processing power available on smartcards. A natural solution is the use of service proxies to mediate between network clients and smartcards. Main requirements to such architectures are spontaneous and transparent service integration, remote access, and usage security. We discuss these requirements using the JiniCard system as an example which provides seamless integration of smartcard services within a spontaneous networking environment.