The world's tenth-largest company, and second-largest oil company, chose a Linux-based PIN-pad entry device (PED) for its UK and Ireland gas stations. Shell selected Trintech's Smart 5000 PED because the hybrid card reader supports both magnetic swipe/signature authentication and the new generation of chip-and-PIN smart cards.

Chip-and-PIN is in

According to Trintech, Shell was the first major UK oil company to achieve bank certification for its EMV system. EMV is a chip-and-PIN (personal identification number) payment authorization standard agreed to by Mastercard and Visa.

Shell also expects to become the UK's first oil company to complete an EMV system rollout. Following a successful pilot program at high traffic sites in Northampton, Shell expects to have installed the Trintech PEDs at all company-owned stations throughout the UK and Ireland by December, 2004.

The Smart 5000 PED

The Smart 5000 is based on an ARM7 processor, with MMU (memory management unit). It boots a 2.4 series embedded Linux kernel from 4MB of Flash (8MB optionally available). The device includes 16MB of SDRAM, and 512K of SRAM.

Trintech's Smart 5000 PIN entry device
(Click to enlarge)
Standard I/O ports include an RS-232 serial port, and USB. Optional ports include PSTN (public switched telephone network), ISDN (integrated service digital network), and IP/LAN (Ethernet).

The Smart 5000 includes an 8-line, 132 x 64 pixel backlit graphics display, along with 15 keys and 6 programmable keys. It also contains an EMV L1 certified chip card reader; a Track 1, 2, & 3 magswipe reader; and 3 additional SIM/SAM readers.

The Smart 500 measure 8 x 4.3 x 4.7 inches (205 x 110 x 120 mm).

Trintech's Linux-based Smart 5000 PED received certification by Visa as a secure PED in October, 2003. The device also sports certified encryption capabilities for DES, 3DES, RSA (2048-bit key length), with countermeasures agains DPA, DFA, an DTA. It also supports SHA1 and KUKPT.

The Linux-based Smart 5000 won a speed contest among PIN entry devices for chip-and-pin POS devices sponsored by a German bank, according to Trintech.

More details about Trintech's Smart 5000 PIN entry devices are available here. Trintech first launched its PayWare architecture for POS (point of sales/service) products in March of 2002.

---

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.