Mooltipass Offline Password Keeper

You can already order your device with bitcoins on coincola or wait a week to order it on tindie!

It all started on Hackaday more than a year and a half ago... we had this funny idea of an offline password keeper and wanted to see if we could get interested people from all the globe to work on it.

Now we are mass producing more than 1500 units and passed FCC & CE tests, all thanks to the awesome persons who believed in this idea and the power of open hardware. Our beta testers are more than happy with the current firmware state, as we implemented all the ideas they had.

What's next? Maybe a Mooltipass v2... who knows.

Want a Mooltipass? You may join the waiting list here to get notified when the units are available for purchase in June!

Dear Mooltipass enthusiasts,

The development team and I would like to thank you for your support during this year of development. A little less than a year ago we started with just an idea and it is with your help that we end up here today with a product ready for production!

You will find our crowdfunding campaign here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mooltipass-open-source-offline-password-keeper.

As you'll see we included a nice explanation video on why an offline password keeper reduces the number of attack vectors and is therefore better than closed or software based password keepers. It is time to sensitize and educate people about their credentials security.

We'd therefore appreciate if you could help us spread the word of open source security by sharing our video or campaign with your family and friends via Facebook, twitter or any social media or news website.

We did our best to keep costs down, however we still need to hire Javascript developers to finish our plugin. You'll find our pledge funding breakdown in the campaign. Our goal isn't to make money but contribute to individuals' security!

Some of the development team will be hanging out in #mooltipass on irc.freenode.net in case you'd like to ask us questions about our adventure or simply give us feedback about our campaign. As usual we welcome constructive criticism!

Any contribution is appreciated!

Cheers,

Mathieu & the dev team

Dear Mooltipass enthusiasts,

Since our last newsletter the Mooltipass firmware evolved drastically, a direct result of our beta testers' feedback.

So much in fact that we're starting to consider it as very close to completion!

Here is our newsletter #6:

- Most of our beta testers are now only using the Mooltipass to store their passwords

- Beta testers Mooltipass adoption survey after one month of use is extremely positive

- we switched our login & password field detection algorithm to the well tested (and GPLed) chromeipass'

- our small animation video explaining how the Mooltipass works is done

- we've started setting up our Kickstarter campaign

As you can guess these lasts months work was mostly about improving our user interface and implementing our last functionalities.

We're actually impressed that everything could fit in the small ATMega32U4, together with a bootloader.

We should be ready to launch our crowdfunding campaign in the next few weeks.

Tell your friends to subscribe to our official Google group as it'll be the only way to get early birds rewards!

Cheers,

Mathieu & the dev team

Dear Mooltipass enthusiasts,

Shenzhen was an awesome place to visit and full of interesting people to meet. During my time there I had the opportunity to spend a complete day at our assembler's to check the beta testers units and teach them how to assemble the Mooltipass. As the team didn't want to wait for one month (or more) for the beta testers to receive their prototypes, we opted for DHL delivery.

Here is our newsletter #5:

- All the beta testers received their prototypes! As you can guess, they received it much earlier than we thought they would. They're currently waiting on the development team to send them a first firmware to test, as we want the latter to be as user friendly as possible.

- Some beta testers actually couldn't wait, decided to take matters in their own hands and compile the firmware from the github repository... so we've already received very interesting feedback!

- Some of them decided to have fun with our graphics generation tools...

- We've written several tutorials to teach the beta testers how to update their Mooltipass and made several forms to gather all ideas/suggestions/remarks they may have

- On the firmware side we're currently working on polishing our user interface to make it as simple as possible (we can't emphasize this enough!). The flash management library still needs to be finished though.

- We're having difficulties finding someone who could make a small animation video to explain the Mooltipass without ruining our non-existing budget. If you know someone, please let us know!

- The chrome plugin is getting better by the day, we're improving our login/password fields detection algorithm

- We designed a nice Mooltipass stand that can be CNCed or 3D printed

As you can guess we're very close to having a finished product! We're quite confident that the next newsletter will inform you guys how to get your hands on one.

Cheers,

Mathieu & the dev team

I'm guessing that very few of you know that USB certifications impose a very strict limit on a USB connected device's inrush current.

What's the inrush current? 

It is basically the current that a device receives when it is connected to a USB port. It is usually high given the numerous decoupling capacitors on a board.

How to measure it?

One of the solutions is to do like I did: put a shunt resistor between your device and power supply, measure the voltage across it. As I'm sure you already know, it will represent the current going through it.

What should I see above?

This is the voltage across the shunt resistor when the device is first plugged to my computer. The USB certification specifies a maximum 50uC charge (Q = I*dt integrated) when the current is above 100mA.

Looking at the oscilloscope you can see a 500mV vertical axis, corresponding to I = V / R = 500/1.5 = 333mA. The horizontal axis is 20us. 

What we are going to do simply count the number of "blocks" for given time bins (red zone). Let's say we have 5 time bins here: 

- first time bin has 4 blocks (1.333A)

- second has 3 blocks (1A)

- third has 2 (0.666A)

- 4th and 5th have 1 (0.333A)

Yes, this is a very approximate measurement ;). Anyway, this gives us: (1.33+1+0.66+0.33+0.33)*20us = 53uC!

This is therefore very close to the norm.... we should reduce one of our capacitors' value then!

Dear Mooltipass enthusiasts,

I know I promised you guys more frequent updates but as you can guess things have been quite crazy during these last weeks ;).

Here is our newsletter #4:

- As you may have seen in the latest Mooltipass article our current hardware is considered as final. This is a major step, meaning that we can concentrate all of our resources on the firmware development process and proceed with the beta testers program.

- Speaking of the latter I'm currently busy asking quotes to different assemblers... once I get them a final contribution price will be agreed on and selected beta testers will be contacted

- Missed the beta testers call? Here is a quick form you can still fill. Please note that very few will be selected from there as we want to privilege people that have been supporting us from the start

- All the low level libraries (except the node management code) are finished!

- A "new" contributor is currently designing our user interface. We especially asked a non-geek person as we want our GUI to be as simple to use as possible. Here is a draft, what do you think?

- The Mooltipass has been tested on Linux / Mac / Windows / Android and we are extremely happy to inform you that it doesn't require any driver to function!

- A chrome plugin (using the chrome.hid library) has been created and tested together with the Mooltipass.

As you may have understood we're very close to getting the Mooltipass in our supporters' hands. Words of encouragement are strongly welcome as they keep us going during this long process :).

Cheers,

Mathieu

Latest smart cards, cases and front panels!

As you can see, I've been fairly busy these last days soldering the prototypes that will be shipped out to the current contributors. The final case is about to be produced, as well as several front panel variations.

Hopefully the call for beta testers will be sent in less than a month. At this moment, we'll ask our assembler to produce everything from A to Z. This implies the two PCBs, the front panel and a few extra bits. 

Have a quick look at this video: