The following module was proposed for inclusion in the Module List:
modid: Chipcard::CTAPI
DSLIP: RdhOp
description: Communication with chipcard terminals
userid: WHOM (Wolfgang Hommel)
chapterid: 4 (Operating_System_Interfaces)
communities:
comp.lang.perl.modules
similar:
PCSC::Lite
rationale:
This is a request for the approval of a new root namespace,
"Chipcard".
My recently released perl module, Chipcard::CTAPI, available as
$CPAN/modules/by-authors/id/W/WH/WHOM/Chipcard-CTAPI-0.1.tar.gz
provides access to chipcard terminals based on the standardized
CTAPI library, which is available for most, if not all, chipcard
readers. There are various C libraries and frameworks available for
accessing card terminals, the most popular platform-independed ones
being CTAPI and PC/SC.
Comparing PC/SC with CTAPI is a bit like comparing ODBC with
vendor-specific database drivers: like ODBC, PC/SC comes from the
Windows world, requires some work under UNIX-like OS to set up and
has certain overhead like an always running pcscd-daemon. CTAPI on
the other hand provides a standardized interface through a
vendor-specific C library which is easy to set up and has no runtime
overhead.
For natively accessing smartcards from Perl, there so far was only
one module available, PCSC::Lite, which, as the name implies, goes
the PC/SC way. There are several issues about PCSC::Lite I would
like to mention ahead of the further discussion:
1. The root namespace PCSC was never registered, according to the
archives, registration was requested on 2002/02/02 without
follow-ups.
2. The PCSC::Lite module does not seem to be actively maintained on
CPAN anymore. The latest version there, as well as on the website
specified with the CPAN account, is 1.0.8, but on the author's
homepage, there's a version 1.1.3 available:
http://ludovic.rousseau.free.fr/softwares/pcsc-perl/pcsc-perl.html
3. There are no other modules available below the PCSC rootlevel
namespace I'm avare of currently but PCSC::Lite.
Furthermore, except the PCSC-tools, by the same author as
PCSC::Lite, hardly any Perl program seems to use PCSC::Lite. In
fact, searching for chipcard-related Perl applications reveals that
almost all of them use external command line tools (like 'smartcard'
0.1.8), which are written in C and based on CTAPI, for their
communication with card terminals. I believe that this is not
because of PCSC::Lite, but because the PC/SC framework in general is
rather unattractive to home users due to its overhead, whereas the
lightweight CTAPI is much easier to get to work.
That, by the way, was also the reason for writing and releasing a
CTAPI-related Perl module, as it hopefully enables Perl programms to
communicate with card terminals directly and easily without having
to run external programs for doing so, or demanding from the end
user to install and configure PC/SC first.
Back to the namespace issue, here's my point of view regarding the
"Chipcard" root namespace:
1. I've browsed the module list from top to bottom and back to top
and didn't find an existing registered namespace where it would
really fit. Obviously, Perl has not been used too much for chipcard
programming yet, that's something with a definitive potential to
change, as card readers and blank card become cheaper and security
applications get more into mainstream. Also, it obviously does not
fit into the (not registered) PCSC namespace, as CTAPI and PCSC are
like apples and pears. If the module list maintainers know a better
place where the module would fit but a new root namespace, I'll
gladly change my implementation to fit any deliberate suggestions.
2. "Chipcard" is a relatively neutral name, as it applies to both
memory cards and processor cards, whereas "Smartcard" would only be
an alias for "processor cards" (although in public, "smartcard" is
often used erroneously for both types of cards).
3. A "Chipcard" rootlevel namespace could become home of both the
CTAPI and the PCSC module. About the PCSC module, this a) should not
be too big of a problem, because, as discussed above, there seem not
to be many applications using it. b) depends on whether its author
still wants his module on CPAN at all, see the version 1.0.8 <->
1.1.3 issue discussed above. Furthermore, such a common rootlevel
namespace could also be used by modules build on top of either CTAPI
or PCSC, for example drivers for various smartcard types with
specific features which are not covered yet.
enteredby: WHOM (Wolfgang Hommel)
enteredon: Fri Feb 7 16:19:49 2003 GMT
The resulting entry would be:
Chipcard::
::CTAPI RdhOp Communication with chipcard terminals WHOM
Thanks for registering,
The Pause Team
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