Distributed object programming environment for smart card application development

This paper examines the important challenges of extending the smart card processing architecture to support distributed computing paradigm. After highlighting the issues and possible approaches to achieving this objective, we propose the ORBCard framework. The framework extends CORBA middleware services of providing distributed computing platform to developing smart card applications. The framework is based on using a proxy server that facilitates bridging services between the ORB bus communications and interacting with the smart card´s applet using native APDU commands. In particular, we developed the ORBCard compiler that automates the generation of the client stubs and proxy classes using IDL as the baseline interface description language. The initial implementation of the framework has demonstrated the feasibility and validity of the concept in providing a distributed programming environment for smart card applications based on CORBA infrastructure