What is the Crypto Bone?

In short, the Crypto Bone is a novel approach to making confidential communication both secure and usable.

While you are writing or reading messages on your Linux computer, the security of your communication is always at risk, because malware can affect your computer in many ways. The computer we use day-by-day essentially is too complex and too vulnerable to be completely secure.

It is quite obvious that in using a second external device to encrypt your messages, security can be improved considerably. The original idea was to use an autonomous micro computer like the Beagle Bone or the Raspberry Pi to delegate all encryption and key management to a device that can be much more secure than the computer you usually use.

Such a secure, external device can help ordinary users to establish secure communication with other people that is always encrypted.

And at the same time it will make life easier for people, because all message keys are stored in a safe place. Apart from providing a single secret when a conversation with somebody starts, there is no need to keep track of the message keys used to encrypt the messages that are sent out. These keys are updated and managed automatically in a safe manner, so that the user is not required to remember keys or complex passwords to continue the secure communication.

It is your login password that you'll need to run the graphical user interface, because the keys are stored in the memory of a daemon that can only be used with root permissions.

Users don't need any knowledge of cryptography or special skills to operate the Crypto Bone. And they still maintain the sole control over the message keys themselves, as it possible to interrupt or reset the initial secret for any communication using the graphical user interface.

Although such a separate, external device is quite useful to secure the database in which message keys are stored, it is also possible to use a carfully designed daemon on the main machine to be used as a local, software-based Crypto Bone. Obviously the local Crypto Bone is less secure than an external device, but as a carefully designed daemon process it can protect all message keys against malware threats that don't gain full root privilege on the main machine.

The Crypto Bone makes sure that all messages are encrypted with keys stored locally in a safe place, either inside the local cryptobone daemon on your main computer or in a separate external device, if additional protection of the message key database is required. No third party needs to be trusted to make secure confidential communication happen. It's all under the user's control.

The system updates the message encryption keys with every message exchange, so that only currently used message keys are in the computer's main memory. Past messages have been read already and their decryption keys are reliably deleted and forgotten. This mechanism ensures that messages exchanged in the past cannot be read, even if the encrypted messages are leaked, because the encryption keys, previously stored in main memory, are long gone and cannot be re-constructed.

Benefits

The Crypto Bone:

• makes sure, that all messages sent are encrypted with a strong random message key, so you don't need to bother about using encryption software on your main computer,

• keeps track of your correspondent's message keys and stores them safely in its own isolated database, so you can forget about encryption keys in every-day use of your Crypto Bone,

• is build on basic principles, like minimal complexity and audited crypto code, so you benefit from the reliability of a well-designed isolated system. In principle, the Crypto Bone can reasonably be checked if it does what it should do and nothing else,

• produces encrypted messages in OpenPGP format, that other people can read, so you are not tied to a propretary system that can only talk to itself. Other people can respond to your secure messages in the same way, even if they don't have a Crypto Bone that does all the hard work for them,

• enables you (and only you) to block a correspondent or reset this person's key, so you will always be able to determine how your Crypto Bone works.
  You'll only find message in your inbox that you authorized to be accepted by your Crypto Bone. As spam cannot encrypt an email with a key you accept, you'll never see spam in your mailbox. It's impossible by design.

How does it work in practice?

Using the Crypto Bone for confidential communication starts with downloading and installing one of the main packages If you don't want to store your message keys on a separate device, that's all you need to do. You can use the local, software-based Crypto Bone (ALLINONE) that is included in the main "cryptobone" package.

Just type "cryptobone-email" or "cryptobone-safewebdrop" in a shell (or click the icon) to start your Crypto Bone control program.

You can control every aspect of your secure communication needs from this GUI program on your main Linux machine.

Using an External Device

If you have decided to use an external device to store the message keys in an isolated environment, you have three options.

You can use a second Linux computer, a Beagle Bone or a Raspberry Pi 3. All three devices can be turned into a secure external Crypto Bone, ready to provide the encryption engine for your communication on your main Linux machine. In this case, the graphical application on your main computer sends all commands directly to your external device instead of processing the message encryption inside the local daemon on your main machine.

With the second Linux computer you need to activate the external Crypto Bone software that is already installed with the main package. A separate GUI "external-cryptobone-admin" will lead you through the process of activation.

You can also download the Crypto Stick, a ready-to-go Crypto Bone installation on a USB drive. Using the stick you will leave your computer's hard disk in peace and boot the minimalistic but fully functional graphical operating system from your USB drive.

The Beagle Bone or Raspberry Pi both require the preparation of a SD card with a large image file that can be downloaded from this website's download section.

In any case, you have to perform a few basic steps to enable your main computer to safely co-operate with the external device you have selected. In order to establish a secure data connection between the external device and your main Linux machine, three secrets have to be transfered from the external device, where they were created, to the main Linux computer, where they need to be used and stored safely. These initial setup steps have been explained in the installation tutorial in detail,

After you have set up your preferred external devices with the software from the website, there is an initialisation process on the first boot, in which you make your external Crypto Bone your own. The initialisation process is fully automatic and will result in the creation of three secrets, that you can copy off the SD card (or USB key) with the help of the graphical "cryptobone-*" program on your local Linux computer. In case you use a second Linux Computer you need to prepare a USB stick to store and transfer the secrets instead of a SD card.

The cryptobone program allows you to transfer these secrets into the local cryptobone daemon with the push of a button. Now you have prepared your Crypto Bone for use and made it your own.

Finally, you need to connect your second device via an ethernet cable to your router, which should serve an IP address to your external Crypto Bone with DHCP. The setup program will also try to find out which IP address had ben given to your external Crypto Bone by your router. It is advisable to ensure that the router will continue to allocate this IP address to your external device in future, as it will be stored in your main computer's configuration.

What you need to do yourself

There are some important tasks the Crypto Bone cannot do for you, because you want to be in control of the whole process. In particular, you need to provide an initial secret that you have agreed upon with your correspondent to start exchanging messages securely.

This is your part, it cannot be done automatically, because you should be able to determine which correspondent you trust. And you do that by entering (or selecting) a strong message key for your correspondent to start with.

In the subsequent message exchange, the Crypto Bone will take care of the message keys and you can forget about it, but to provide the initial secret should be entirely your own decision, because it lays the trust foundations for the message exchange.

Before we start to explain the technical aspects of the inner workings, it is necessary to explore the Crypto Bone from a user's point of view. Here is the ideal situation.

If you are interested in the technical aspects of the Crypto Bone's inner workings this explanation contains all the details.