I have posted a few times on here about the External Certificate Authority type identity and encryption certificates for us poor, lowly contractors that need to communicate with the DoD. I obtain my ECA certificate from one of the DISA-approved third party vendors. The problem that I currently have is that my current Smart Card, a Gemalto Cyberflex Access 64K V2C, as reported by ActivClient in Windows, is not supported by the included tokends in Lion or the Pkard software doesn't work on this card type either.
My primary goal for use of this ECA smart card is JPAS authentication, digital identity, and email encryption. Currently, I have to use Windows to do these functions. I don't mind using a Windows machine to initialize the certificates on the card, however, for everyday use, I would like to stay on the Mac side without having to boot VMWare just to send an email.
Since it is probably less likely that support for the type of Smart Card that I have will be added, let me work the problem backwards. Please forgive me for perhaps oversimplifying the problem or misusing some of the terminology because I sort of look at the whole thing as a black box that should just "work" with out having to understand the technical details for your typical end user.
But, is there a Smart Card vendor that I could buy some cards from that already are supported on the Mac with either default tokends or with Pkard support? From my observation from how the certificates are installed on my current card on Windows with ActivClient from the ECA vendor, the actual "brand" of Smart Card appears irrelevant as long as ActivClient supports it. For example, perhaps being dumb about it, can I buy a Smart Card from the CAC vendor before they officially become a CAC card? And use that Smart Card during the certificate generation process from the ECA vendor?
Any help would be appreciated. I would like to minimize my use of Windows for these types of trivial tasks. Now if I could just get Pro/Engineer or Solidworks on the Mac, I would be set.
Bob Colbert
email@hidden
DE Technologies, Inc.