Re: iPAQ and USB cryptographic tokens?

Paul,

> We'd like to use USB-connected cryptographic smart tokens with things
> like the iPAQ or the Sharp Zaurus. From a brief study of the USB spec,
> it looks as if one could easily hack a cable to connect the handheld
> to a female "A" connector into which a token could be plugged. The
> question is whether the USB driver software under Linux would know
> what to do. Has anybody tried this? Is there any hope?

USB is not a point-to-point, that is AFAIK the main problem. The ipaq is a
USB slave from the hardware side of view, so if your USB crypto token provides
the USB host things might work. OTOH if you find a PCMCIA (attention: no
cardbus type will work in the ipaq sleeves) or CF USB card you get the required
(hardware) USB host function; and you still need a driver for that card.
That's all i know about, see
http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/doc/PCMCIA-HOWTO.html and http://www.linux-usb.org/

greetings
Martin
martin.heimes_at_gmx.de

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