The present invention is directed toward dynamic downloading of keyboard keycode data to a networked client. According to one or more embodiments of the present invention, a user logs into a networked client by presenting a smart card to a card reader attached to the client (or by some other authentication mechanism) and enters a PIN into the keyboard. The keycodes entered by the user logging into the client are obtained, translated into ASCII characters, and presented to the smart card. If the PIN is correct, the user is able to log in, otherwise the log in fails. In one embodiment, when the user enters the PIN, a translation table is downloaded from the server into the client. The client uses the translation table to convert the keycodes to ASCII text and presents the ASCII text to the smart card for authentication.