New Dongle technology, using Smart Cards

[dyn!o]

SmartCards usage inside dongles cannot bring anything powerful simmply because of SmartCards acrhitecture.

Nevertheless of the fact that SmartCard can block the access to their OS, file system and core, it is still crackable because they are too slow to operate as virtual machines. Even if they would, you can always decompile/decrypt encrypted/translated code (look at XProtector, StarForce) because each protection, before the protection takes place, inserts own signatures (markers) inside the software to be protected. Of course I mean nowadays common technologies.

The other fact is that SmartCard is nothing fancy nowadays. You can use ASICs and FPGAs (e.g. using a so called secure bit, like in Xilinx devices) to perform much more flexible and powerful protection, with less effort.

There is still a big, unused hole in software protections. It is not about anti-dumping, anti-debugging and bla bla... It is about creativity.

That is all very true.

I'm pointing out that there is a difference between a SmartCard, as used as a "badge" for, say, secure access through a locked door, and SmartCard technology as may be used in something still as critical, but not necessarily as urgent. SmartCards themselves have two "limitations", one is the time frame for action/reaction, and the other is the read range. But both of these are considered desireable by security geeks.

Using the technology as a dongle means that there is no significant urgency, as you normally have a "long" (many, many seconds) bootup time for the PC. And, given that there is usually some kind of wired connection from the card reader to the PC, it means relative ease of interception of the data as well as plenty of time to intercept the data and analyze it later. Of course, the typical big-company employee just wants to get his job done, and doesn't really care about things like that. Nevertheless, I expect you are right, and, regardless of the data itself, the actual implementation of the protection method is where the creativity must be focused. I would think
biometrics is where the efforts will be.

sarge