Mobile Broadband

Well I've taken the plunge and have got mobile broadband from T-Mobile.

I'm still trying to work out how to get access the the wireless hotspots as I need to send a text using my SIM card to get a username and password.

I think that I'm just going to have to stick the SIM card in my normal phone, send the text and see what happens.

I've been working on the Encrypted Zip on the train to and from work and having access to the internet has been a godsend. Especially when negotiating the deep, dark waters of Java Cryptography. Why are the APIs so overcomplicated? I'm facade-ing a lot away and so may end up with some classes that will be of wider use.

I'm also swearing at the wider Cryptography community. There is a dearth of decent keystore standards and implementations. For those who don't know what a keystore is, it is a type of file where you keep the keys and certificates that you use to encrypt things and to prove your identity online. The only broadly portable 'standard' keystore is PKCS#12 which is widely held up as an example of how not to create a cryptography standard. In my implementation I'll probably have to default to simple password based encryption and allow users to specify better levels of encryption at the cost of reduced cross-platform portability.

On the other hand I have working code and am beginning to see my way clear to a working encrypted zip.