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View Full Version : Well, now that's weird... PC registry thing

northwind
08-09-06, 12:04 AM
Just having a wee poke around in Regedit, getting rid of some old stuff... And I found an item for Gemplus. Gemplus is an cryptographics company that we use at my work, but I've never had an install disk within a mile of this PC... It's a pretty specialised system, we use it with smartcard encryption keys to give physical security as well as crypto. So what's it doing in my registry? They also make verious things like chip and pin card blanks, mobile phone sim cards...

Any other Dell owners fancy having a quick peek in theirs, see if it's some random Dell abberation?
Filipe M.
08-09-06, 12:07 AM
I don't have access to a windows pc from here, much less a Dell, but I'm sure I've seen that Gemplus entry before somewhere... I'll take a peek a.s.a.p and get back at you.
northwind
08-09-06, 12:12 AM
It's not a worry, so no rush ;) It's just a weird thing to find, the name'd mean nothing to me if it wasn't for work and I got hardly any google hits for gemplus + registry. One person asking the same question as me ;) No answers.
Filipe M.
08-09-06, 12:17 AM
As a wild guess, after reading this (http://www.gemplus.com/products/reader_pc_link.html) I'd say it could be related to some pre-installed drivers for Gemplus Card Readers (SmartCards and all that)...
northwind
08-09-06, 12:31 AM
Yup, that's what it'll be- GemSAFE is the software they use for their public key standard. It does look like it's a windows XP standard- though why that'd be, I have no idea, this isn't a common system to be using (that's why Gemplus are practically out of business ;) )

Cheers for that!
TSM
08-09-06, 07:53 AM
As a wild guess, after reading this (http://www.gemplus.com/products/reader_pc_link.html) I'd say it could be related to some pre-installed drivers for Gemplus Card Readers (SmartCards and all that)...

Yep you are right. We have a couple of these at work for authing on the Barclays business banking system.
rwoodcock01
08-09-06, 08:15 AM
As a wild guess, after reading this (http://www.gemplus.com/products/reader_pc_link.html) I'd say it could be related to some pre-installed drivers for Gemplus Card Readers (SmartCards and all that)...

Correct there pre-installed XP drivers, we use them here at UCLH. Nothing to worry about.

Rich
chazzyb
08-09-06, 08:37 AM
Yup, I have that key on my work Dell XP box. We don't 'do' smart cards here. In fact, we don't do anything smart at all. :roll:
Baph
08-09-06, 08:56 AM
It's no supprise for me that we have the Gemplus registry keys. Dell machine, Windows 2000 Pro.

I have to connect securely to a lot of different client sites, over a number of different VPNs (and one, we have to dial down an ISDN line because they're so paranoid that their servers are not permitted access to ANY internet. Well, their entire buildings have no internet access whatsoever).

So that would explain cryptography for me.
Viney
08-09-06, 11:17 AM
got it on mine as well and this is a home build system.
northwind
08-09-06, 11:35 AM
Must be in Windows then for reasons unknown. Thanks folks... It was just weird to find it there, it'd have meant nothing to me if we didn't run the things for work so I'd have just ignored it ;)

It's pronounced Gemploo, by teh way, and really annoys them when you say gem+. So I always do :)