A. mobiVault makes you an integral part of the security system. By choosing a master password with care your data is safe to an unimaginable degree. The mobile phone has a large selection of special characters and, choosing from these, the numbers and upper and lower-case letters, means that an 8-character password can be chosen from 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 possibilities. Longer passwords mean more possibilities.
This is how it works. There is no copy of the password stored in the phone. When you enter it, it is converted via a special algorithm into a set of numbers: for every possible password there is a unique set. (Even for the same password, the numbers are different for every phone.) These numbers determine how our proprietary encryption algorithm encodes and decodes your data. All your data is stored in the phone protected in this way - uniquely scrambled for each possible password.
A good password can never be guessed. If you lose you phone, another person could only try 5 guesses after which all the data is destroyed. (So don't forget your password, there is no back door!)
When you take a piece of data and encrypt it with a good algorithm, each text character is chopped up into pieces and mixed with pieces of the other characters: the bigger each group of characters this process is applied to the more obscure the result. In the mobiVault system, it is a function of the master password to determine how the mixing is done. For example, using just four numeric characters, there are 10,000 ways of doing this. Using 4 letters instead of numbers the possible combinations rises to 450,000. If you use a combination of numbers, upper and lower case letters and, a selection from a choice of 30 symbols, the number is over 71,000,000. Use 16 characters for the password instead of 4 and you have more than 20 million trillion trillion ways of scrambling the data.
A. Text VAULT to 80556 see Buy page to find out how to order
A. Check your phone's features. If the phone supports MIDP 1.0 or MIDP 2.0 the software should run on your phone. It is hard to find a phone that doesn't offer this support.
A. mobiVault has been certified through the Java Verified program (www.javaverified.com). The Java Verified program was launched by Motorola, Nokia, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone Group, LG Electronics and Sun Microsystems. In the words of the program “you can be sure that your application meets the industry recognised test criteria created by mobile Java technology experts, including leading device manufacturers and network operators.”
A. In the same way that your phone book memory is retained when your battery is exhausted your database will also be retained.
A. If no key is pressed for 5
minutes the application will close automatically.
A. As an additional security measure the application automatically times out after 15 minutes however only the record being entered at the time is affected.
A. There is a version of the software for 'phones which support MIDP 1.0 and also a version for 'phones supporting MIDP 2.0. These are standards to which nearly every mobile 'phone manufacturer subscribes and we have adhered strictly to these.
A. The software has been designed to withstand even this eventuality.
Because
the keys and permutation table are produced by a one-way function, the
only attack is by trying every possible combination of master password
until a match is found with guessed possible values of fragments of the
confidential data. To begin with, the attacker would somehow have to
extract from the phone a copy of the software and reverse-engineer it
to discover the algorithm. Then for each phone the encrypted database
would have to be extracted.
It is accepted that the attacker's computing resources will be much superior to those of the device. However, the user is able to choose a master password in order to put the cost and timescale to discover the password, by several orders of magnitude, beyond the worth and lifetime respectively of the confidential data.
A. You can store up to 50 “services” with associated passwords, Pin’s, Credit Card details or contacts as required.
A. All passwords are case-sensitive. Use numbers, letters and symbols. It is best to use only the symbols you are familiar with but this will give you a choice of about 30.
A. By selecting the service name required you then have the option to modify details as required.
A. Select random generated password and then modify to something shorter or more suitable.
A. Due to the security inherent in the application if you forget your Master Password you will have effectively lost access to your database of stored information. There is no back door and none was used for testing. You may consider keeping a note of your Master Password in a secure place separated from your mobile. e.g. in a safe at home or with a trusted friend or relative.
A. To ensure security if you enter an incorrect password 5 times in a row all your data will be destroyed. This will happen even if you switch off the phone in between attempts. When you enter the correct password, this count is reset. In this way occasional mistakes will not jeopardise your data.
A. Email help@mobivault.net
Some more details on mobiles, applications and java can be found at
E and OE
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