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cost a heap o' piastres

proprietary Windows-based executables instead of an open, cross-platform design

a parallel-port security dongle (Never Again!)

they told me "tough luck" when Windows NT came out and the dongle-driver was incompatible

I had previously bought a set of their encyclopedia as well as their "Great Books" set. Although both sets were excellent value (and I still have them), the bad experience with their CD made me vow never to buy another product from them.

On the bright side, I discovered that the manufacturer of the dongle has made a new version of the dongle-driver available, so I can use the EB CD again. (Hey, if you own one of these CDs, see Rainbow for the driver.)

Rainbow Tech makes these for their ikey and Sentinel products. You can use these for authentication as well as storing files. The problem remains that they are not 100% compatible with what's out there. If you don't have a screen to see what's on the fob, you then require an LCD screen. At that point you're talking about a PDA. I understand RSA Security has modules for PDAs

Rainbow has been making USB dongles of this type for years. The key generation/signing happens in the token. It wouldn't help the boot sequence without rewriting the BIOS, but it meets the criteria of removable without exposing keys. Rainbow

It's a shame that it isn't wireless, but the iKey SuperToken combines biometrics with encapsulated key storage and authentication. If it's stolen, you lose a key, but the thief doesn't get it.

could this be used in SSL acceleration cards to improve the effiency of the SSL 'processor'

Unlikely in presently deployed accelerator cards, since AFAIK most (Rainbow CryptoSwift and nCipher) are based on custom hardware chips (FPGA and the likes) which do mainly RSA key setup which is the really slow part of establishing a SSL session. I believe several of the cards do not even do any symmetric (i.e. RC4, 3DES) acceleration because it isn't worth it.

Just saw these guys at a government security conference, they were one of the other vendors there.

They already claim to have support for all the *bsd variants, including freebsd

Rainbow's CryptoSwift

I am using the commercial SecureCRT from Vandyke. I have never had any problems with the client and it supports everything a administrator needs...

It's shareware.. If I only knew how my Ikey 1000 works with SecureCRT ...

KG-84

Secure telephones

The NSA has some really smart people to rip this stuff apart and certify it to be secure before it goes into production. These products are usually designed to a higher standard than software programmed by people in their spare time or microsoft.

Rainbow, the leading maker of dongles, has acquired Mykotronx, which builds NSA-approved crypto. One result of this has been the iKey 2000 USB-based public key device. This is a key-sized device that plugs into a USB port and does public key encryption. It's not just a key - it's the crypto device itself. So the computer it's plugged into never sees the key. There's Windows support; someone might want to do Linux support

I have a Rainbow dongle for my copy of Lightwave. AutoCAD in the single user version (not networked) also comes with a dongle.

Plus for the iKey: it's a USB device, so most PCs can chat to it. There's even an NT stack for it, though I suspect that non-M$ OS support is lacking. I do believe that there is a single-logon software suite that supports the iKey.

Both Aladdin and Rainbow make USB tokens with crypto engines on them for storing private keys and performing crypto functions (key never leaves the device). They come in 8/16k versions (more than enough for a few key pairs) and use the Datakey CSP. It's just like a smartcard but uses the USB port as the reader.

The Rainbow Mykotronx FORTEZZA Crypto Card implements cutting-edge cryptographic security and authentication methods in a PCMCIA hardware token for Government and commercial applications. Self-contained, standardized, and easily integrated, the Card provides the ultimate in portable security, together with on-board storage of user credentials, keys, and digital certificates.

Fully FORTEZZA compliant, the card incorporates the National Security Agency-certified CAPSTONE RISC-based cryptographic processor. It is the hardware crypto token chosen to secure the Defense Messaging System (DMS).

More info on the card we're looking at can be found here. (IANAF - I am not a flack).

Rainbow Technologies.

They were featured here on slashdot a while ago, and they make encryption hardware...

Mainly PCI cards for SSL ecommerce server, but they also have rackmount boxes which you can route all your encryption to. This means it can handle all the encryption for an entire server room.

And they're even a publicly traded stock - RNBO.

/nutt

CPU serial numbers are useful mostly for networking, inventory control, and copy protection. If you've had to deal with dongles, or FLEXLM, the License Manager from Hell, CPU serial numbers look like a big improvement. Dongles are notorious for having problems when you have more than one. They usually plug into the printer port (although USB dongles are appearing) and try, not too successfully, to be transparent. On my system, if the printer runs out of paper, the dongle can't respond to the license manager, and the licensed software stops running.

For those in the windoze world, use an ikey. Thus all I need to remember is a password for the ikey.....