Application Development Environments for Java and SIM Toolkit.

The smart card is a very popular component of many commercial and government system solutions. The ability of the smart card to store data securely and resist a great deal of physical tampering is part of the attraction, but so too is the ability to run algorithms and protocols. Whilst there are successful and popular systems that make use of fairly simple cards with fixed function algorithms, the true potential of the smart card can only be realised when it represents a flexible platform for general application hosting and management. Fortunately such functionality is becoming commonplace on modern cards and so the focus moves to how applications may be practically developed to exploit it. There are a range of ways this can be done, but by way of illustration this chapter restricts itself to Java as one of the most popular development methods and applies it to (U)SIMs; perhaps the most powerful of the mass deployed smart cards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]