Yubico Forum

Hi guys,

Of course the YK is a cool device, but I'm not always keen to put a sticker on it to distinguish one from the other. Have you considered perhaps printing a barcoded serial number on the back? That would help identify various YKs, esp for enterprise customers that deal with a lot of keys.

What about the form factor? I don't know the size of the electronics on the inside, but how about if you embed that into a credit card sized application, like a smartcard. That would allow further applications like building access, where you can purchase blank "card based YK" that can be printed with a company logo & employee picture, add a low cost converter plug that can change the smartcard to a USB interface, and you're set to roll this out in an enterprise environment.

Cheers
Phil

Thanks, Phil - Good ideas are always welcome.

We have developed some color- and number coded stickers that can be affixed to the key - just like a number-plate to your black Model-T Ford... We'll release these shortly.

We have developed a new process for producing and deploying Yubikeys, where each key will have its public ID printed on a non-permanent sticker affixed on the sleeve. This should speed up deployment in larger volumes.

Without revealing anything at this point, even Ford introduced other colors than black after a while....

Regards,

JakobE
Hardware- and firmware guy @ Yubico

I forgot to answer your last point regarding other form factors.

We've been thinking along these lines a bit, but the very nice thing with USB HID keyboards is that all systems supports it. Smartcards are great but their curse is the lack of an infrastructure. In the end of the day, the deploying instance always need to provide readers and support for them to be installed.

The electronics is tiny and could easily be mounted on a Smartcard module.

A pretty cool form factor, albeit a bit flimsy, is the SanDisk SD card with a built-in USB contact. I've seen some other odd devices based on the USB form factor.

Regards,

JakobE
Hardware- and firmware guy @ Yubico

Hi Jakob, in terms of the "smartcard" form factor, my idea would be not to change any of the electronics.. Leave it a USB HID protocol, but instead of having an actuall USB connector, you just have the "smartcard" contacts, and supply a relatively cheap "connector" that will connect the "Yubikey Smartcard" to a USB port.

I say "relatively cheap" to allow these "card readers" easilly deployable across an enterprise. It should be such that anyone with a soldering iron can take a USB cable and affix it to the "Yubikey smartcard" and it should still work.

So no, don't make it an actual smartcard.. Just use the card and it's enclosure, but still take the actual Yubikey and just pop that onto a card.

Cheers

Phil