This week I was able to obtain a bluetooth smart card reader from RIM for testing puproses with the USAF. I'll tell you what, this thing is sweet. I was told it was 'a blackberry without a screen or keyboard'. That description fits pretty well. It has a small monochrome screen on the back that shows status as well as an LED that flashes red, green or blue colors depending on what's going on.

RIM gives you a link to download the smart card software. Downloaded it and installed it on an 8700 (also not AF approved yet). The 8700 found the reader instantly. I put my Common Access Card (CAC) in the reader, went to options, certificates, wheel-clicked and loaded the certs from my CAC to the bb. Worked perfectly. Now I can digitally sign and encrypt email as well as recieve email that has been signed or encrypted.

The reader is wrapped in AES encryption and meets all the FIPS standards.
The reader software turns the password protection 'on' on the bb and prompts you for your CAC's PIN everytime you lock it or whatnot. It also has an option to lock when you pull out the CAC, and that worked seamlessly.

We're still testing, but so far a great product for the DoD!

Thought I'd post this....hadn't seen much (Bluetooth BlackBerry Smart Card Reader) yet about the smart card reader....maybe someone is interested....

Thanks for the initial impressions on the smartcard reader - I'd love to hear more commentary as you use/evaluate. Also, have you done any auditing of the bluetooth comms between the reader and bb with the trifinite.org tools? What kind of interaction between the reader and bb takes place before cert exchange/xfer?

So far so good.....the reader has been working flawlessly. I need to call RIM and see if they are going to develop software that would allow the reader to be used on pc's as well, when it is plugged in via USB.

I also received one for testing purposes.. I have it set up to where it asks me for both my bberry pw and CAC pin, and will lock the bberry when the card is removed.

next up, how to get the option to digitally sign and encrypt emails on the blackberry? anyone tried this yet?

we also now have one for testing purposes...

we have the reader and the bb talking for locking and unlocking the bb...

but have not been able to digitally sign or encrypt messages yet... any ideas or updates?

thanks in advance

THANK YOU! I've been dying to read more about those.

Anyone got the RIM reader working to encrypt/decrypt? I have the drivers installed on my 8703 (tried 7100i as well), and I can only get it to pair up and sycnh certificates. I do not have the option when composing an email to select Plain Text, Sign, Sign & Encrypt. I have verified that I have S/Mime enable at the server.

Alan

Has anyone had an update on this... I am trying to get it working for J6B and have not had any sucess.

Just wondering if you are using with BES or Desktop redirector, it seems if the BES is not configured correctly the device will not pair up or allow sign and encrypt. Any hints or suggestions, the reader found it's way to my desk last week I am getting ready to start trying it out.

I am using a 7290 with 4.0.0.34 handheld software
Desktop version 4.0.0.30

Thanks in advance, DWBe

I have an 8100 (pearl) from T-Mobile, we have the latest BES version and have turned off the Smart Card authentication functionality on the BES and pushed out a new profile to my 8100. I continue to get an error that reads "Please install a valid smart card authenticator. See your Admin for assistance." It completely locks the phone up so that you can't make/take calls, use e-mail etc. Worked for about 10 hours with RIM and T-Mobile tech support to try to troubleshoot the problem and they eventually decided it must be a software glitch and sent me a new phone. However, several others at my company just got pearls and are having the same problem now. Anyone else had this problem and if so, how did you fix it?

I have a 7250 and a 8703 which both accepted the install and pairing flawlessly. Unfortunately I get the wicked question mark by the user certificate. I go to fetch the status and all I get is "I/O error while communicating with proxy" on both handhelds. I've had this work on several others I've done a while back but it doesn't work on these two. Anyone have any ideas? I've verified and reverified the LDAP and OCSP servers to be correct through several people and even on the working ones stil no joy.

I am the BB admin for the MT Army National Guard. I am also setting up the Bluetooth BB Card reader. Unfortunately I am having the same issues with not being able to digitally sign and encrypt e-mails.

I have loaded the S\MIME package on the BES and on the handheld. I have paired with the BB Card reader and I have set up the OCSP location on the BES so it can validate my certs and give me green check mark. But I cannot get it to digitally sign or digitally sign and encrypt.

Any answers yet?

Anyone else having troubles with sending encrypted email?

I can recieve signed and encrypted mail fine but have no send option on the reply?

Thanks for any info....

We have been having problems here at J6B esp with the sending... we can recieve just fine
The 8800 are the ones that we are having the most problems with

nmhudec,

what problem are you having? we have been using the Bluetooth CAC reader for many months here, however not yet with the 8800 models.

When I get to the CAC card synch step with the Smart Card Reader, I get a message that states that I must upgrade to version 4.2.0.58. ....but I cannot find this version available anywhere at all!!! So my synching of CAC card number to the SCR is not working. Do you know where I can download it?

Are you sure that the SC reader and the device have the same version of software? If not, you need to update both the SCR and device with the current version. I don't know about 4.2.0.58 because that could be the package version or the applications version they are different.

toddz

wow,great!

If you are a t-support subscriber, log into your account and you will see a link to S/MIME Support Packages. Download the 4.1.0.12 package and install it. When you view it after installation it the version will show-up as 4.2.0.58. Let me know how it goes.

I finaly got everything working here at J6B. The 8800 and the rest of them. We are able to encrypt, sign and read everything. The only complaint that most everyone has is that when they are sending an encrypted message it is rather slow to validate the certs, plus they often come up stale