[gnukeyring-discuss] Keyring 2.0-pre2 test release

[Jochen H. <Hoe...@In...>]

A new test release of Keyring is out:

Keyring for PalmOS 2.0-pre2

Copyright 1999-2002 by Martin Pool
Copyright 2001-2005 by Jochen Hoenicke

  http://gnukeyring.sourceforge.net/prerelease.html

This is a prerelease of keyring and it may contain bugs that destroy
the database or even require a hard reset.  So MAKE A BACKUP before
installing this.  And keep a backup of the Keys-Gtkr.pdb file in a
separate place in case you need to downgrade to 1.2.2 later.

If you have used keyring-2.0-pre1 you should remove Keyring-Test now.
This will also remove the test database.  This second test release does
not use it's own test database but upgrades the database of keyring-1.x

If you have used keyring-1.x before, the new version will first ask you
to upgrade the database.  There is no way to downgrade again except by
recovering from an old backup.  The upgrade process will ask you to set
the password again and to choose an encryption cipher and an iteration
count.  You have to enter the old password from keyring-1.x.

A big value for the iteration count "Iter:" makes password checking slow.
This is to prevent brute-force attacks.  Unfortunately a Palm is very
slow in comparison to a desktop PC, so checking a single password takes=20
more than a second for 1000 iterations.  I recommend the value 500 as=20
compromise between speed and security.

Three encryption ciphers are supported: 3-DES (with 168 bit key),=20
AES (with 128 bit key) and AES-256 (with 256 bit keys).  If you plan to
use AES you have to install the library of course. If you choose "No" as
Cipher you do not get any encryption.  This option is there for testing
purposes only, it will be removed in the final release.

You only need MDlib for upgrading from an old database (in that case you
should already have installed it).  After upgrading you can remove this
library.  If you use AES, you can also remove DESlib after upgrading.

The database format has not changed since pre1, so there is no need for
a new keyring-link release.

=46uture Plans:  The biggest hurdle in releasing 2.0 is solved, as there=20
is now an upgrade path from 1.x.  There are a few small pending patches,
e.g. the patch to use the 4-way navigator.  Also the translations have
to be updated.  The 2.0 release will not have major new features, though.

  Jochen

=2D-=20
Jochen Hoenicke, University of Oldenburg, 26111 Oldenburg, Germany
Email: hoe...@in...  Tel: +49 441 798 3124