[ale] Smart cards

[Michael B. Trausch]

Hello,

I'm doing some looking at an idea, but I am having a hard time finding
information.  I want to toy with the idea of creating a sign-on system
using smart cards; something where you don't even need a username.  I
know that this is possible for Web applications with relative ease,
but I would like to cook up something that'd be useful for distributed
administrative management.  For example, I could use a smart card to
authenticate to my home network when I'm away from home, and my laptop
(or whatever computer I am at) would only be allowed to access certain
resources on my home network when a valid and non-revoked card
(certificate) is used.

I've read quite a bit about _how_ to get the software to do such
things, but the important question is the one that I don't have an
answer to.  I want cards that can be setup with keys and used from
both Linux and Windows systems without a great deal of effort.  Is
that actually possible?  Shouldn't I be able to have a card and a USB
reader, for example, and be able to use my smart card to access a Web
site, or SSH connection, or whatever, without having to worry about
"it won't work with system X because there isn't a library for it" or
whatever?

Or are the only options for such a thing truly to order from out of
the country?

    --- Mike