Threat Forward

It’s been a fun time setting up my brand-new Omnikey 5321 USB smartcard/RFID reader.  I worked with one a year or so ago, and was duly impressed.  This new one is just as solid.  HID makes quality equipment, and has acquired companies that make quality equipment.

HID provides drivers for use under Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.  The completeness of those drivers decreases in that order.  I acquired this reader to work with contactless smartcards, including Mifare and iClass cards.  The cards I have to test with at the moment are an ISO14443b card and an EMV (PayPass) token.  All of these operate on the 13.56Mhz ‘standard’ RFID frequency, but are not all equal in the eyes of the 5321.

I first borrowed a Windows laptop to make sure the reader worked.  HID provides a driver and a test application for Windows that I am familiar with.  Once it was set up and the USB driver changed to the HID factory driver, I tested the cards.  The 14443b card came up with the right Card ID and ATR.  The EMV token was detected as an ISO14443b device.  The Card ID and ATR looked right.  All is good on the Windows front.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a Windows machine of my own to do development on.  In each case, bringing the card near the reader resulted in the activity light flashing as the card was read.

My next adventure was to try out the OSX driver bundle.  Mac OS X uses pcscd to talk to smartcard readers.  HID provides a CCID-style driver bundle, currently version 1.0.0 released March 2009.  It loaded up fine, and detected the reader.  As promised by HID on their specifications page, the OSX driver does not work with contactless cards.  In fact, the reader does not respond at all when cards are brought near it … the activity light does not flash.

Finally, I loaded up the Linux driver bundle, version 2.7.0 from February 2010.  I was fortunate to have read up on installing pcsc-lite ahead of time, which kept me out of trouble by instructing me to configure with –enable-libusb and –disable-libhal.  After installing the driver and loading up pcscd, the reader was correctly identified.  The 14443b card was read without any problem.  The Card ID and ATR were both as expected.  However, the EMV token was not read at all.  Just like with the OSX driver, the activity light didn’t flash when it was brought near.

It’s clear that the Windows drivers allow the reader to use all of its capabilities.  The Linux driver fails to read at least one type of RFID token.  The HID-provided OSX driver is nearly useless — the stock PCSC-Lite CCID drivers provide the same functionality in the 5×21 series of readers.

I’m hoping that the Linux drivers will work with the Mifare and iClass cards that are on their way.  If not, I’m going to have to get a Windows machine working.  That would be a shame.