Ask Slashdot: Does Free Encryption Software for the Pilot Exist?

Guido asks: "I'm looking for a freely available PGP/GPG-compatible software program for the Palm Pilot. I found several shareware programs, most of which don't come with source and/or don't reveal which algorithms they use and/or don't have the support base I want--all not appealing to me. A port of SSLeay to the Palm Pilot, called pilotSSLeay, exists. This means that all of the cryptographic algorithms one might need are already ported. I'm just wondering if someone has used this to make a PGP/GPG-compatible encryption program for the Pilot?

Library, maybe examples availible.

[strredwolf]

The programming section of Palm Central (http://www.palmcentral.com) has a good basis of what you need.

There's a "pgplib"

[Loki]

library [cs.uit.no] with source available, but it's not done and there's no app made for it other then a test app.

Yes it does!

[KrON]

Check out www.certicom.com 128Bit encryption!
=D

SSH?

[kpreslan]

I would actualy go out and buy a modem for my pilot if there was a version of ssh for it.

Secret! has IDEA

[Cato]

I know you want PGP, but Secret! is a MemoPad-like application that encrypts its data using IDEA with 128 bit keys (actually the longest passphrase allowed means a 105 bit key). It is not open source, but it does have binaries for Linux and Solaris that will decrypt its database file to stdout.

The 2.0 version was freeware, 2.1 and later are shareware. Very useful for PINs and passwords, etc.

Ugh. Pilots

[Cato]

You must have had a bad one - 3com will replace it for free if it is. Or maybe there was some ill-behaved software installed - worth trying apps first on xcopilot, which emulates the Palm and catches some errors.

My Pilot has a pretty good uptime, and any resets I have had don't lose data, so they are pretty uneventful.

As for using ssh - there are keyboards available for the Pilot, e.g. GoType - you can just plug in the keyboard when ssh'ing, maybe from a hotel room, but carry just the Pilot the rest of the time. And it's nearer a full-size keyboard than (say) a Psion or CE box.

Each to their own...

This might be useful, perhaps.

[afeinberg]

Although I normally scoff at people's desire to port any and all apps to the pilot, a PGP-clone that interfaces with the Pilot's mail app would be great. The problem is, there isn't enough memory space on a pilot for the required apps and keys. If the application were built-in, it would severely hamper 3Com's efforts in International markets due to the United States Gov't's idiotic and shortsighted crypto policies. It would be great, but it probably can't happen.

Andrew

This might be useful, perhaps.

[Phil Karn]

Many years ago I proposed the idea of a "crypto
dongle", running on a PDA, that would keep your
RSA secret key and perform operations using it
in response to requests over a serial link from
an attached computer. The idea would be to provide
a better level of protection for your secret key
than otherwise possible on a desktop machine to
which others might have physical access. The Pilot
seems like a good platform for this. Has anyone
else thought of this?

PGP For the PalmPilot

[hacker]

I actually have SSLeay and OpenPGP running on my PalmIII right now. it supports IDEA, 3DES, CAST, BF, with a hash of MD5, SHA, RMD, and MD2. I think that should satisfy even the most secure user. As a side note, I also have pilOTP, pSNK, and a few other toys... (can't forget the ultra-cool Linux splash screen at power on =)

Email me if you want details. I didn't write it, but I was personally given it by the author while trolling around on IRC.

PGP for the PalmPilot

[hacker]

Well, I don't know where you are all going with this, but on my Palm III, I have 9.7 megs of space (with the TRG 8 meg board, plus the built-in PalmOS ROM space I can burn to, I get much more than just 8 megs), I have room for whatever apps and keys for PGP I need. I have the following on my palm, to assist in my PGP efforts:

Opgp\ Library.prc
CAST\ Library.prc
DES\ Library.prc
DSA\ Library.prc
IDEA\ Library.prc
MD\ Library.prc
MathLib.prc
OpenPGP.prc
Passwords.pdb
RAND\ Library.prc
RSA\ Library.prc
Top\ Gun\ SSH.prc
Top\ Gun\ Login\ Lib.prc
pSNK.prc
pilOTP.prc

They all work fine on my palm unit now. PGP encryption and decryption works perfectly.

See you all on the other side...