Palm Pilot Handshake

[Mike Rosing]

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