Non-invasive testing of smart cards

Details Non-invasive testing of smart cards Non-invasive testing of smart cards

2000-10-17

2003-09-09

Bui, Bryan (Department: 2863)

Data processing: measuring, calibrating, or testing

Testing system

Of circuit

C702S012000, C713S186000, C340S870030

Reexamination Certificate

active

06618685

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the testing of systems that use smart cards.
Portions of the disclosure of this patent document contain material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
2. Background Art
In modern computing it is desirable for a user to be interacting with a computer, to stop the interacting with the computer, to move to a new computer, and to begin interacting with the new computer at precisely the point where the user stopped interacting with the first computer. To perform such an activity a “smart card” may be used . A smart card is a card-like device that is physically inserted into the computer and read by the computer. The smart card provides information to the new computer that enables it, for example, to locate the data and computer programs necessary to re-create the computing session that was terminated on the old computer.
Typically many computing devices using smart cards are connected to a few servers that store the data and execute the computer programs. When a user inserts the smart card a message is sent to the server informing it that a card has been inserted. Upon receipt of the message the server responds by running a computer program that allows it to communicate with the card to identify what type of card it is and what data and computer programs are associated with the card.
In the past, servers have failed to perform properly when too many end-users were inserting smart cards into their computing devices at the same time. There is currently no effective way to determine what situations might cause a server to perform improperly. Before discussing the drawbacks associated with current schemes, it is instructive to discuss how the nature of computing is changing.
The Nature of Computing
The nature of computing is changing. Originally, computing was “machine-centric” where users accessed a dedicated computer at a single location. The dedicated computer had all the data and computer programs necessary for the user to operate the computer and it ideally had large amounts of hardware, such as disk drives, memory, processors, and the like. With the advent of the Internet, however, different computers have become more desirable and the focus of computing -has become “service-oriented”. In particular, the Internet allows a user to access data and computer programs that exist elsewhere by using a computer network When the user accesses such data or computer programs, the remote computer is said to be providing a service to the user. With the improvement in services available to users, the need to have a dedicated computer following the machine-centric paradigm is greatly reduced.
In particular, computers in a service-oriented environment have little need for robust hardware. For instance, the remote computer processes the instructions before providing the service, so a powerful processor is not needed. Similarly, the service is providing the data so there is little need to have large capacity disk drives. In such an environment, one advantage is that a user can access any computer at any location and still use the computer in the same manner (i.e., have access to the same data and computer programs). For instance, a user may be in location A and running a word processor and a game. In a service-oriented environment, the user could stop using the computer in location A and move to location B where the user could resume word processing and game playing on the different machine at the exact point where the user stopped using the machine at location A An architecture that makes such an interaction possible is described below.
Multi-Tier Application Architecture
In the multi-tier application architecture, a client communicates requests to a server for data, software and services, for example, and the server responds to the requests. The server's response may entail communication with a database management system for the storage and retrieval of data.
The multi-tier architecture includes at least a database tier that includes a database server, an application tier that includes an application server and application logic (i.e., software application programs, functions, etc.), and a client tier. The application server responds to application requests received from the client and forwards data requests to the database server.
FIG. 1
provides an overview of a multi-tier architecture. Client tier
100
typically consists of a computer system that provides a graphic user interface (GUI) generated by a client
110
, such as a browser or other user interface application. Conventional browsers include Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, among others. Client
110
generates a display from, for example, a specification of GUI elements (e.g., a file containing input, form, and text elements defined using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)) and/or from an applet (i.e., a program such as a program written using the Java™ programming language, or other platform independent programming language, that runs when it is loaded by the browser).
Further application functionality is provided by application logic managed by application server
120
in application tier
130
. The apportionment of application functionality between client tier
100
and application tier
130
is dependent upon whether a “thin client” or “thick client” topology is desired. In a thin client topology, the client tier (i.e., the end user's computer) is used primarily to display output and obtain input, while the computing takes place in other tiers. A thick client topology, on the other hand, uses a more conventional general purpose computer having processing, memory, and data storage abilities. Database tier
140
contains the data that is accessed by the application logic in application tier
130
. Database server
150
manages the data, its structure and the operations that can be performed on the data and/or its structure.
Application server
120
can include applications such as a corporation's scheduling, accounting, personnel and payroll applications, for example. Application server
120
manages requests for the applications that are stored therein. Application server
120
can also manage the storage and dissemination of production versions of application logic. Database server
150
manages the database(s) that manage data for applications. Database server
150
responds to requests to access the scheduling, accounting, personnel and payroll applications' data, for example.
Connection
160
is used to transmit data between client tier
100
and application tier
130
, and may also be used to transfer the application logic to client tier
100
. The client tier can communicate with the application tier via, for example, a Remote Method Invocator (RMI) application programming interface (API) available from Sun Microsystems™. The RMI API provides the ability to invoke methods, or software modules, that reside on another computer system. Parameters are packaged and unpackaged for transmittal to and from the client tier. Connection
170
between application server
120
and database server
150
represents the transmission of requests for data and the responses to such requests from applications that reside in application server
120
.
Elements of the client tier, application tier and database tier (e.g., client
110
application server
120
and dat

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