The National Institute of Standards and Technology and GSA have been working with the five smart-card prime contracting teams to hammer out a final version of the interoperability standard. Mike Brooks, director of the Center for Smart Card Solutions in GSA's Federal Technology Service, said the organizations are refining the specifications issued last year and are planning to have a new draft ready by June 30. While the delay in establishing the standard has created some drag on agencies' interest in pursuing smart-card applications, many see the government's move to the technology as inevitable. One of those is Scott Schnell, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development for RSA Security Inc., a Bedford, Mass., company specializing in security software and hardware, including those for smart-card applications. His company operates an independent laboratory dedicated to cryptographic and security research, working on open standards, some of which apply to smart cards.
Smart cards are just the tip of the iceberg.
While most efforts are focused on access concerns, some federal agencies are beginning to think about additional functions for smart cards. The Defense Department, for example, is considering joint exercise applications, such as manifesting and tracking military travelers, deployment readiness and food service, Dixon said. Another application related to access, but more sophisticated, is public key infrastructure, or PKI, and its usefulness for electronic signatures. PKI is an electronic system of verifying an individual's identity using an embedded authentication certificate. With the passage of the Government Paperwork Elimination Act in 1998, federal agencies must be able to offer and accept digital signatures, McKeon said.