Ludovic Rousseau's blog: AlcorMicro AU9560 reader and fast smart cards: help from crowd needed

The AlcorMicro AU9560 smart card reader has problems with high speed smart cards.

The reported problem

The same problem is already reported in different places:

Example of cards in reported problems

The reader is always the same but used with different cards.

The card must have a TA₁ > 0x95. To know the TA₁ of your smart card you need to get and parse the card's ATR, for example using pcsc_scan program from pcsc-tools.

The problem

The reader declares it can support card/reader communication speed up to 688 172 bps.
See dwMaxDataRate field in AlcorMicro_AU9560.txt.

It is fast but I have 4.5 % of readers in my list that declare to be faster (not including contactless readers).

But speeds above ~200 000 bps are problematic with the AlcorMicro AU9560. It works fine, until an APDU exchange fails with a "Hardware error" (for example) message from the reader:

00000009 APDU: 00 A4 00 00 02 3F 00 00
00000007 ifdhandler.c:1333:IFDHTransmitToICC() usb:058f/9540:libudev:0:/dev/bus/usb/001/002 (lun: 0)
00000006 commands.c:1670:CmdXfrBlockAPDU_extended() T=0 (extended): 8 bytes
00000017 -> 000000 6F 08 00 00 00 00 0E 00 00 00 00 A4 00 00 02 3F 00 00
02734396 <- 000000 80 00 00 00 00 00 0E 41 FB 00
00000025 commands.c:1563:CCID_Receive Hardware error
00000009 APDU: 00 A4 00 00 02 3F 00 00

Where are the bogus readers?

The AlcorMicro AU9560 is not a stand alone USB reader. It must be integrated in a laptop. For example it is present in these laptop models:

Lenovo Thinkpad P17
Lenovo Thinkpad L15
Lenovo X1 Extreme Gen 2
HP Zbook
HP EliteBook.

I guess the same AlcorMicro AU9560 reader is present in a lot of other Lenovo or HP laptops and also laptops from other brands.

Patch

I worked on a patch to remove the highest speeds so that the CCID driver will negotiate a lower speed that is still supported by the reader.

Problem with the patch

My patch works fine with one card I have (NXP JCOP 4). But it generates problems with another card (Acos-ID).

The error occurs when the driver set the communication speed. The Set Parameters commands fails and the driver gets a "Card absent or mute" error.

00000004 [140396399142464] commands.c:2324:SetParameters() length: 7 bytes
00000006 [140396399142464] -> 000000 61 07 00 00 00 00 07 01 00 00 95 10 FF 46 00 FE 00
01646726 [140396415927872] ccid_usb.c:1532:InterruptRead() after (0) (2)
00621370 [140396399142464] <- 000000 82 00 00 00 00 00 07 41 FE 00
00000025 [140396399142464] commands.c:2351:SetParameters Card absent or mute
00000005 [140396399142464] prothandler.c:141:PHSetProtocol() Set PTS failed (612)

I suspect the problem to be specific to this card. But I am not sure. That is why I need your help to test with as much possible combinations as possible.

Your help is welcome

If your have:

a laptop with the AlcorMicro AU9560 smart card reader
a fast enough smart card (i.e. TA₁ > 0x95)

then you can help me.

The AlcorMicro AU9560 and the AlcorMicro AU9540 both use the same USB idProduct value of 0x9540 even if the two readers are a bit different. So even if you have a AU9560 the PC/SC name will be "Alcor Micro AU9540 xx yy". If you do not know what reader you have just suppose you have a AU9560.

You can check the 2 conditions above (AlcorMicro and TA1 value) using the pcsc_scan tools. See

$ pcsc_scan 
Using reader plug'n play mechanism
Scanning present readers...
0: Alcor Micro AU9540 00 00
 
Sat Dec 17 11:02:51 2022
 Reader 0: Alcor Micro AU9540 00 00
  Event number: 0
  Card state: Card inserted, Shared Mode, 
  ATR: 3B DC 96 FF 81 11 FE 80 31 C8 54 43 56 35 07 73 FF A1 C0 3C

ATR: 3B DC 96 FF 81 11 FE 80 31 C8 54 43 56 35 07 73 FF A1 C0 3C
+ TS = 3B --> Direct Convention
+ T0 = DC, Y(1): 1101, K: 12 (historical bytes)
  TA(1) = 96 --> Fi=512, Di=32, 16 cycles/ETU
    250000 bits/s at 4 MHz, fMax for Fi = 5 MHz => 312500 bits/s
  TC(1) = FF --> Extra guard time: 255 (special value)
  TD(1) = 81 --> Y(i+1) = 1000, Protocol T = 1 
-----
  TD(2) = 11 --> Y(i+1) = 0001, Protocol T = 1 
-----
  TA(3) = FE --> IFSC: 254
+ Historical bytes: 80 31 C8 54 43 56 35 07 73 FF A1 C0
[...]
+ TCK = 3C (correct checksum)

Possibly identified card (using /home/rousseau/.cache/smartcard_list.txt):
3B DC 96 FF 81 11 FE 80 31 C8 54 43 56 35 07 73 FF A1 C0 3C
	NXP JCOP 4, J3R200P0X3U/0ZA16CP NXD6.2 (JavaCard)

Please do:

download, build and install the patched version of the CCID driver from https://ccid.apdu.fr/files/ccid-1.5.1-3ac3a1a.tar.bz2
test it fixes the problems you had with the previous CCID driver
test it does not create new problems that were not present with the previous CCID driver
if a new problem appears I would like you to report it including: