On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Tyler Durden wrote:

Yo! Anyone out there in codeville know if the following is possible?

I'd like to be able digitally "shake hands" using a Palm Pilot. Is this possible?

Yes.

And now let's say there's some guy at a party claiming to be that very same Tyler Durden, but you're not so sure (this real-life Tyler Durden is WAY too much of an obvious chick-magnet to be the same guy that posts on the Internet). BUT, you happen to have your Palm Pilot(TM), and so does he. So you both both engage the little hand-shaking app on your PP (using Tyler Durden's public key) and there's verification. Yep. Same dude. (You then procede to prostrate yourself before this obvious godlet, stating "I'm not worthy, Sire".)

Or punch him in the nose :-)

Is this possible within the memory constraints of a Palm device? What about with a booster pack of memory? If not, is some sort of "Public Key Masking" possible so that a 'less secure' handshake is possible using a subset of the public key?

It's there. And you have lots of choices of algorithms too. Maybe too many choices...

And for extra credit, when might the chipsets be available for incorporating this functionality into, say, a wristwatch so that the protocol runs automatically (giving you a beep, for instance, only if there's a mismatch)? (This I'm sure the feds must already have.)

It's there. Check out "smart cards". One chip does the job quite nicely. Way too many choices there too. Do a web search for "secure cryptographic hardware". Have lots of time to read :-) Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike