BeagleBone project
spotlight: CryptoCape

When I think of
cryptography, I think of movies like Sneakers,
U571 and Pi. However, Josh Datko’s new solution
will put cryptography in the hands of every developer — not only
submariners (even though Josh happens to be one) and MENSA-level mathematicians
— so that everyone from students and garage developers to professional
engineers can secure their projects.

Josh and his company Cryptotronix, in collaboration with SparkFun
Electronics, are creating the CryptoCape for BeagleBone Black.
The CryptoCape is an open-source hardware collection
of cryptographic modules that extends the hardware cryptographic abilities of
BeagleBone Black. The computer is powered by TI’s Sitara AM335x processor,
which offers powerful cryptographic accelerators for AES, SHA and MD5 as well
as a hardware random number generator. The CryptoCape
coupled with BeagleBone Black will be a great solution for devices with
increased security demands, such as networked servers, hardware
“wallets” and more.

The CryptoCape
will include features such as:

– A Trusted Platform Module
(TPM) that can be used to secure the boot process or store encrypted
information on BeagleBone Black.

– Two Atmel authentication
devices that provide, SHA-256, HMAC, or ECDSA based authentication and
integrity mechanisms.

– A 5ppm I2C Real-Time
Clock with a dedicated coin-cell battery backup for accurate timekeeping in an
offline environment.

– An Arduino-compatible
ATmega328p that can be programmed from the BeagleBone Black to upload your own
crypto libraries or to extend the CryptoCape with
your own projects.

The CryptoCape
will be manufactured by SparkFun Electronics and
available on their storefront soon.

For more information about
the CryptoCape, visit Josh’s CryptoCape
page. He provides status updates to the CryptoCape
Google Group; and design and source files are hosted at GitHub.

Want to chat with us
about this project? Tweet us at @BeagleBoardOrg!