Exploring .NET Smart Card Framework SDK

I finally got the .NET Smart Card Framework SDK . Yes, that's another gadget with (tiny) .NET Framework.

 

I immediatly put hands on and faced the first problem: as Administrator you have to authenticate with card using T-DES challenge/response. No problem, you have everything you need in .NET System.Cryptography namespace. But ... default administrators key is 000...000 (24 bytes all nulls) which throws an WeakKey exception when you try to use it with TripleDES class. In order to change the default key, first you have to login with it - eh...

 

Finally I found the solution on Gemalto's site http://www.netsolutions.gemalto.com/utilities.html . Cryptogram calculator on this site has fixed Admin key (all 0), you just enter the challenge and voila.

 

Othervise the .NET smart card is quite impressive for me as .NET programmer. I could tell more after few weeks...