The Common Access Card, also colloquially referred to as the CAC (often called CAC card, due to what is informally known as RAS syndrome), is a smart card about the size of a credit card. It is the standard identification for active-duty military personnel, Selected Reserve, United States Department of Defense (DoD) civilian employees, and eligible contractor personnel. It is also the principal card used to enable physical access to buildings and controlled spaces, and it provides access to defense computer networks and systems. It also serves as an identification card under the Geneva Conventions (esp. the Third Geneva Convention). The CAC satisfies two-factor authentication: something that belongs to the user, and something only known to the user. And, the CAC covers the bases for digital signature and data encryption technology: authentication, integrity and non-repudiation.
The CAC is a controlled item. As of 2008, DoD has issued over 17 million smart cards. This number includes reissues to accommodate changes in name, rank, or status and to replace lost or stolen cards. As of the same date, approximately 3.5 million unterminated or active CACs are in circulation. DoD has deployed an issuance infrastructure at over 1000 sites in more than 25 countries around the world and is rolling out more than one million card readers and associated middleware.
Read more about Common Access Card: Issuance, Design, Usage, Common Problems
Famous quotes containing the words common, access and/or card:
“Education is the point at which we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, not to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new—but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world.”
—Hannah Arendt (20th century)
“The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes—McCarthy and Stalin—that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“What is the disease which manifests itself in an inability to leave a party—any party at all—until it is all over and the lights are being put out?... I suppose that part of this mania for staying is due to a fear that, if I go, something good will happen and I’ll miss it. Somebody might do card tricks, or shoot somebody else.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)