CDR: RE: Lions and Tigers and Backdoors, oh, my...

[Trei, Peter]

> ----------
> From: 	Michael Motyka[SMTP:mmotyka at 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