Practical security systems with smartcards

Secure hardware is a useful tool for enhancing computer system security. Traditionally, researchers have attempted to build secure operating systems by creating secure hardware and developing on top of it. Our approach is to integrate commodity secure hardware, i.e., smartcards, into existing operating systems. The paper describes three projects aimed at practical secure operating systems based on smartcards: smartcard integration with Kerberos V5, a UNIX file system for smartcards, and Internet Protocol on smartcards. The first two are implemented and indicate satisfactory performance, while the last is under development.