---------- From: Michael Motyka[SMTP:mmotyka@lsil.com] Using an embedded system is not a new topic here. I think its the only viable method of securing data.

On that note, given the little wireless gizmo of Tim's description, the device could have, via appropriate applications on the insecure host/transport gateway, access to a services on the host that would expand its list of resources without compromising security. The obvious useful resources are the network and mass storage though other i/o might be interesting. All storage of course would be encrypted and never available as plain text on the host. Any i/o used should not carry information that is to be kept private, only as a means to transport non-critical data into the PDA.

What is required is a PDA that is open sourced all the way down to the HW. Is the Palm this way? I think I've asked this before but frankly I don't remember the answer. There are probably others that are OK. Yopy looks interesting. Which ones will still be around in a couple of years?

Full source code for the Palm OS is available to registered developers (who have signed an NDA). It's not too difficult to become a registered developer. The only PDA I know of which is open source for HW & SW is the Itsy, but a number (Palm, iPAQ, etc) have had Linux ports. Peter Trei