This project started in 1999 as the Engineering thesis project for Tommaso Cucinotta, at SantAnna University Italy, cured by dr. Paolo Bizzarri and prof. Paolo Ancilotti. From then on, it has been cured as part of the PhD program and subsequent research activities undertaken by Tommaso Cucinotta. The original purpose of the project was to enhance the security level of existing open source applications by integrating them with smart card technology. This was achieved by allowing an open source certification authority software OpenCA to interact with smart cards, providing means for a user to store and use its private key and public key certificate on a smart card. Integration of smart cards in the certificate emission chain was a starting point, however additional tools were added in order to allow a user to sign and verify generic files and to allow smart card based logon to a system.

Website: http://smartsign.sourceforge.net/