Thinkpads Forum

I have a W530 that came configured with the smart card reader, which I pretty much ignored. Except now, everything is smart cards so I thought I might as well look at some credit cards and the like and see just what was in there.

Except, the smart card reader isn't working.

The driver says c:\windowssystem32\drivers\lenovord/sys. ; version 4.1.1.1 copyright 2009, digitally signed by Microsoft windows hardware compatibility.

And, c:\windows\system32\drivers\scfilter.sys

And the OS is Windows7/64, fully patched and updated. And Windows goes online and says I have the latest and best driver installed for it.

So, how come when I stick in a card (chip side up) the computer goes "Ba-Bong!" Installing device driver... and eventually, "No driver found, device not installed." ?

And is there any freeware or trialware software out there, that I'd have to download and use to actually see if the smart card reader works? I don't see anything bundled from Lenovo, I would have expected at least something simple to confirm it works.

Anyone?

What kind of "card" are you inserting? It's my understanding that the Smart Card reader in the Thinkpads are for security / encryption means. Like identifying you via a badge or other such credential and then allowing you access to either the computer or network. If you are putting in one of the newer credit cards with the embedded security chip, I'm not so sure that it will be recognized by the system. Those chips are used to validate a sales transaction by generating a supposed unique one-time-code.

The more I think about this, if it IS possible to put in a regular credit card with the new chips and have it read / analyzed / reverse-engineered for nefarious purposes, then it's no better security than the mag stripes that have been on the cards for ages and that can be cloned with fairly simple equipment.

Ray-
I did find one package that would claim to read some data from a credit card, but it is meaningless binary data as far as I can see. "Jsmartcard" java applet. Apparently it offers to read at least three standards, and a credit card will show some data in just one of the three.
"if it IS possible to put in a regular credit card with the new chips and have it read " Well, of course it is! The whole purpose of the smartcards is that there is standard hardware. The same way that mag stripe readers are standard. The only security in the chip system, is that the chip can be interactive and the data can be changed, read as well as written, just like mag stripes were. Any hardware that is deployed across that many industries in a consumer market had [censored] well better be readable & writeable with "standard" hardware.
All the magic is in the coding, AFAIK.