[Pcsclite-muscle] HELP! Any experience on smart card chip wearing?

[Umberto Rustichelli]

On 09/08/2014 10:02 AM, helpcrypto helpcrypto wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 9:30 AM, Umberto Rustichelli <
> umberto.rustichelli at gt50.org> wrote:
>
>>   ...a few millions consecutive signatures for each card (what you wouldn't
>> do to meet the absurd customers' demand!)...
>>
> omg
>
>
>
>> To make it short, does anybody know of any predictable limit that can
>> cause failures (after "many" signatures the *cards disconnect*, one by one)
>> among the following:
>>
>> - cards cannot reliably work for more than N signatures
>>
> If it's a chip-writing limit issue, the card shouldnt be able to write
> after reconnect. Have you tried that?

When the smart card fails, I physically disconnect it then restart the 
procedure, then it works, but apparently every time we restart the cards 
the time-to-failure gets shorter, that is why I am suggesting a wearing 
issue, whether it is due to the smart cards flash/EEPROM, the readers 
(really? I don't buy it) or anything else.
I'm sorry for not having much detail to provide but this is a production 
system and every restart is a painful operation with 
administrative/managerial consequences,  debugging is almost impossible.

Thanks a lot

> - some counters in the PCSC / CCID code
>
> You can try stopping pcscd service and powering off devices each x-million
> operations to discard this.
>
> - any known issue with smart card drivers,
>
> I dont know how you doing, but I suggest doing independent operations (ie:
> use establishContext/releaseContext)
>
> Whats the current operation limit?
> Perhaps the amount of operations done is much more clarifying for us.
> Consider, for example, PCSC dwCurrenStatus has a limit of bits to notify
> card changes (including card resets).
>
> Did anybody try such massive use of cards?
> Not me.
> Why on earth...?
>
>