I recently picked up an older but perfectly adequate HP Z Book Firefly with a built-in smart card reader and I’m wondering what possible use is this little bit of tech? Can I, like, auth with my credit card or whatever? (mostly joking, I briefly looked at the PAM config for that and prefer my current hobbies lol)

  • fullsquare@awful.systems
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    6 hours ago

    New-ish EU national IDs have NFC capability and certificate in them so you can probably sign something with that if you figure out how

  • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
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    5 hours ago

    You could get a bunch of the cheap EEPROM type smart cards and use them to launch programs or play music or something.

  • RYS@lemmy.zip
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    8 hours ago

    There are OpenPGP smart cards, which I used a long time ago since now there are USB dongles available that eliminate the need for a smart card reader and of course a lot of proprietary smart cards used in many companies for the same use cases: authentication, encryption, signatures, etc…

    • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
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      42 seconds ago

      This is one of the more common uses of them, but the tech works with other card types.

      That said I’ve never seen a company invest in the security infrastructure for using smart cards.

    • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.world
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      34 minutes ago

      leaves the laptop alone with a sheet of paper, a pen, and a bag of cash

      comes back 4 hours later you haven’t done anything!

      sets the money atop the laptop

      ohh, cash counter, I get it now…