Personal Common Access Card (CAC) reader

[LT4Life]

So has anybody else been issued a CAC reader to check your email at home (err TDY rather)? From what I understand, they have eliminated web mail all over and this is the only way.

[Guest jaybird141]

Bought one myself, works well. Still a pain for when you are on the road.

[LT4Life]

I got mine (Fairchild) and they gave me no software or anything to get it going. It took me a while but I found all the stuff to get it working so if anybody has any problems PM me.

[schokie]

My wife is a Comm officer and she brought home a reader. That being said I prefer things the way they are now. Less queep to deal with off duty.

[HerkDerka]

So has anybody else been issued a CAC reader to check your email at home (err TDY rather)? From what I understand, they have eliminated web mail all over and this is the only way.

I think if I brought a CAC reader home, I'd have to kick my own ass.

HD

[wings]

I think if I brought a CAC reader home, I'd have to kick my own ass.

HD

That is hilarious!! When was the last time you checked your email at home and said to yourself; “good thing I just checked my email or I would have had to wait until morning to find out that Capt Joe Blow just won CGO of the quarter!”

Cheers

[HerkDerka]

That is hilarious!! When was the last time you checked your email at home and said to yourself; “good thing I just checked my email or I would have had to wait until morning to find out that Capt Joe Blow just won CGO of the quarter!”

So true.

Just look through the message title in your inbox.

-- Capt Joe Blow wins CGO of the quarter and will now be competing for the wing level.

-- There will be a CGOC meeting next week and we will be electing new club officers. Remember, this is your club. Disseminate to everyone possible.

-- There will be a going away party for some TSgt in the service squadron you've never met. Please come help say goodbye to a warrior.

-- New volunteer opportunity at Boys Town Ranch. Great OPR fodder!

-- MFP robot: Please fill out a service survery.

-- Finance robot: Please fill out a service survey.

-- Med Group robot: You have a dental appointment scheduled for 05:30 next December. If you don't show, we'll tell on you.

-- Med Group robot: Please fill out a service survey for our automated appointment reminder.

-- Your DTS voucher has been returned.

-- Comm robot: You email account is full, please delete messages.

-- Comm robot: The network will be down indefinitely.

Yep, time sensitive stuff.

HD

[Guest cbire880]

Looks like its for the super geeks of the board to insert progamming code snippets into messages. If we end up seeing code on this board, it means the cyberspace warriors are looking to get into the action, STS.

[CE2FE]

Is it possible to use my CAC with a CAC reader on my personal laptop? if so, I do I go about using it? I'm going TDY to school next week and am going to be gone until June, just looking for a way to webmail in.

[Guest ABMWannabe]

I'm going TDY to school next week and am going to be gone until June, just looking for a way to webmail in.

Yeah, I have a CAC reader on my home PC and it works great...just head over to your base's NCC and they should be able to provide the nessecery software. Usually just drivers for the reader and a program called "Active Card Gold Smart Card Agent" are all that's needed. Once you install the agent, just register your certificates (an option in one of the menus) and you should be good to go.

Ok, I feel like a total comm nerd....really glad i'm crosstraining soon...

[Guest JimmyH]

Okay, first of all, I lose at life. I have been ISSUED one of these, but it came with no disk or instructions. Lovely. Now I'm TDY (again) and I can't get the damn thing to work on my laptop. No clue even where to start. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I have Windows Vista, if that helps. It certainly doesn't help me, this OS is a piece of shit.

Thanks in advance.

PS, at least I wasn't issued a blackberry. Personal CAC readers might suck, but those things have raised (lowered?) the bar to a whole new level.

Edited April 2, 2008 by JimmyH

[pawnman]

On the other hand, I've heard a story (possibly BS) about a dude conducting a little experiment about squadron leadership.

He got a CAC reader, and stayed home. Answered his email, sent out emails, did all his work by email.

It took 3 months for the SQ/CC to realize he hadn't been to work.

[magnetfreezer]

Okay, first of all, I lose at life. I have been ISSUED one of these, but it came with no disk or instructions. Lovely. Now I'm TDY (again) and I can't get the damn thing to work on my laptop. No clue even where to start. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I have Windows Vista, if that helps. It certainly doesn't help me, this OS is a piece of shit.

Thanks in advance.

PS, at least I wasn't issued a blackberry. Personal CAC readers might suck, but those things have raised (lowered?) the bar to a whole new level.

ActivCard Software download

ActivCard patch for WinXP

Don't have Vista myself, if ActivCard does not work you may be screwed (sts) since backward compatibility is one of the major failures of Vista. You will also need drivers for the specific model of smart card reader they gave you (either google or post back up here for help) to allow ActivCard to read the certificates.

[Guest JimmyH]

I'm getting closer. CAC reader driver is installed. ActiveClient 6.1 installed and working. I plug in my card, and ActiveClient sees my card fine. But when I try to log into mail.amc.af.mil it brings up the usual dialog of which certificate to use, but when I click on "OK" for the e-mail one, I get "Page not found". So I tried to find another .mil website that the CAC reader should work with.. the dreaded DTS. It keeps saying "login failed" with no explanation.

Any clues? I know I'm close.

[LJ Driver]

Try the portal. Also, make sure you've actually loaded your certificates from your cac into the activecard program. Right click on the system tray and open the program, then load/view certificates.

[Guest echofox]

Are you using internet explorer or firefox? You need to use IE if you are not already.

[Guest JimmyH]

Certificates are loaded to Activclient. They show up in that program and they show up on IE->Tools->Options->Content->Certificates. I'm using IE7. No luck with portal either. The browser lets me choose which certificate I want to use (regular vs. email) but after clicking on "OK" it does not ask for my PIN. It just goes to a blank page as if it didn't exist.

This is obnoxious on so many levels.

[FourFans]

This thread exists. The shoe clerks are winning.

[pawnman]

This thread exists. The shoe clerks are winning.

How so? If I can check my email from home, and not go to work, sounds like I'm winning.

And just because I have a reader at home doesn't mean I have to check my email at home.

[FourFans]

How so? If I can check my email from home, and not go to work, sounds like I'm winning.

And just because I have a reader at home doesn't mean I have to check my email at home.

See HD's reply.

[LT4Life]

What I've found is helpful is after you put your CAC in, double-click on the ActiveClient in the lower right corner and then double click on personal data. Enter in your pin and then close it. It seems that IE won't pimp you for your pin but once it's in it works fine.

[Guest Major High]

Hey - Does anybody have a good line on where to get a PCMCIA CAC Reader for a laptop? I've got a USB CAC reader that I got from work, but I'm trying to minimize the number of wires I have dangling from my computer. Thanks in advance.

MH

[spectre56]

Google search produces this.

I'm sure that's not the only one.

[herkbum]

Ask your comm shop. When I got my laptop from them, it had one in it.

[spectre56]

So I broke down and got a CAC reader for use at home. Worked great on my PC, but I bought a Macbook and can't get it to work. Anyone use theirs on a Mac, successfully?