GARETH HALFACREE’S
Hobby tech
The latest tips, tricks and news in the world of computer hobbyism,
from Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and Android to retro computing
S
ecurity in the early days of computing
was physical: a locked control panel
on a machine housed in a guarded
building at the centre of a military base. The
birthofmulti-usercomputing,thenthe
Internet,sawthatchange.Now,electronic
securityis thewatchword,andit’sever-difficult
toguarantee,owingtothesheervolumeof
sitesandserviceswithwhichmodern
computerusersareobligedtoregister.
Thereareinnumerablesoftwarepackages
thattakeaimatthecentralproblem.Password
managers,fromopen-sourcetoolssuch
asKeePassX,tosubscriptionservicessuch
asLastPass,generatehighly-complex
passwordsuniquetoeachsiteandservice
andrememberthemforyouinencrypted
databases.Thereareattemptsatdoingaway
withpasswordsusinghardwaretoo,with
Microsoft’sWindowsHelloofferingfacial
recognitionforauthentication,andGoogle
nowofferingitsownBluetooth-connected
securitydongleswithwhichtoauthenticate
accesstoitsservices.
Thentherearedevicessuchasthe
MooltipassMini(reviewedinIssue168),anopen-hardwaregadget that stores all
yourpasswordsina physical device. The
passwordsthemselves are, of course,
encrypted;thekeyfor this encryption is
storedona smartcard and protected with a
four-digithexadecimal PIN. Get the PIN right,
youcanaccessthepasswords; get it wrong
threetimesina row and the encryption key is
permanentlywiped. As such, step one of using
thedeviceshouldalways be to back up the key
toa secondsmartcard.
TheMooltipassMini, a more compact
successortotheoriginal Mooltipass, is a
cross-platformdevice. People running
Linux,macOS,orWindows can use theMoolticute software tool to manage the
passwords on the device, alongside browser
plug-ins for auto-fill and credential capture.
On other hardware, the Mooltipass shows
up as a USB keyboard – and, if all else fails,
connecting a USB power bank will allow you
to recall passwords that can be displayed on
its built-in OLED panel.
For desktop users, that’s plenty. For
mobile users, though, having to pull out a
micro-USB cable and USB OTG adaptor
every time you need to log in to somewhere
is a chore. That’s where the Mooltipass BLE
comes in. It’s a wholly new variant of thePREVIEW
Mooltipass BLE
CUSTOMISATION / HOBBY TECH
The Mooltipass
BLE features a
built-in battery
and Bluetooth
Low Energy radio