People and Lockix

Associated Press posted:
AP Article : 540,000 New Yorkers at risk of identity theft. Names, addresses and Social Security numbers of injured workers lost.

Associated Press posted:
AP Article: Laptop with Armstrong worker data stolen. Addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers of 12,000 compromised.

Caracolix's answers .... Lockix.

Everyone knows many times all the troubles can be avoided just by being a little more careful of our own actions specially when other people property or personal security is at stake. Just basic security steps involve the creation of a password to protect data access. There is no flawless method of protecting a computer data but some is much better than none.

Passwords are a convenient method of restricting access while they are not very secure if it does not follow strict security guidelines and common people most of the time is not properly informed of what those are. This render a password to be an insecure method of protecting data.More complicated issues arise when that, password protected computer, has to be handled by many people. Good security practices mandate that a password must be changed in a regular basis. Informing the users of the new password may also present a security breach. Finding a way to make those users to remember that complex password aided and insecure methods like writing it in a piece of paper is a far more complex task. Resetting the password of a laptop from abroad may also be a huge inconvenient for any size of business.

Those are some of the inconvenient that for some business may render a password inconvenient. There is always hope in the horizon and this time, thanks to good information, the hope is closer than it looks.
Imagine you can protect a single desktop or a laptop computer with the strongest password ever and not having to remember it. Such a password could well be formed of 1 million characters or more to make it strong enough so no hacking software can break it. But at the same time it can be used.

Imagine you can control one computer, a network of computers or the computers at display in a warehouse with a single key which holds the same combination for all of them.
Imagine the key to be as small as the key of your car.
Imagine traveling to an insecure destination and don't carrying the key but being able to download it from any other computer with an Internet connection and create the unlocking key on site.
Imagine losing the key abroad and imagine being able to unlock the computer just by an internet request. (optional service for licensed versions)
Lockix offers many possibilities at this side of the horizon for a few bucks.

Lockix now can be freely downloaded from any respectable software repository or at it own website.

Lockix comes to life

Lockix was finally released early in 2005 under the name of CXKEY. It came in three flavors. ST (Standard), DLX (Deluxe) and PRO (Proffessional).
Each one had special features for different users and uses. All three offered the same degree of protection but the differences were functional and in the level of features and visual styles.

CXKEY offered to the user a whole deal of information regarding each process it accomplished, so to justify to the user the delays in creating new keys. Even though processing was very fast in low end systems.
Much of the user informational screens are gone with the upgraded Lockix. Overall, it is much faster than CXKEY was. It uses much improved algorithms with better keys. Still on low end systems it perform really smooth.

Lockix was released for public download on early March of 2006.

Lockix now comes in two flavors. Some of the former DLX edition features were merged in the ST edition to give birth to the new PRO edition. The former CXKEY PRO edition then now became the ULT (Ultimate) edition.

Lockix PRO can be downloaded (free) and tested (free) before purchasing a license.
ULT edition in the other hand is not available for free and a license must be purchased immediatelly. ULT licenses are available only through the PRO editions purchase screen.

On the next posts I'll explain a few features of Lockix

The Idea's birth

It was back on 1997 when I was in need of a computer lock good enough to assure me that no one at my office would ever be able to see what I was working in when I was not there and that I would be able to change the combination whenever I wanted. In other words I wanted a lock no one knew it was there and if they have discovered it would give no clues on how to pass it.

Windows user log-in was not good enough for me because I knew that with the right knowledge and equipment anyone can figure out any password.

On that day, the first concept for what is today Lockix was born.
At that time it was called Cloaker. It had a very nice full screen animation which in part served as a screen saver but still it was not as reliable as a real screen saver.

Cloaker used floppy disks to store the key and it also had a fake user login interface which was used to capture any attempts to get access. With those tried passwords it also logged the day and time. With that information would be easier to track the wanna-be-hacker; although that was not the purpose of Cloaker.

A few days later Cloaker was almost finished and working. I say almost finished because it was never working as I wanted. The problem it had was it gave a clue of where the key was expected.

The key as I said above was stored on a floppy disk. So Cloaker needed to check for a floppy disk existence over and over again and that makes the floppy disk drive to sound a clack every time it does. So when Cloaker was running you could hear a clack clack clack sound that repeated to the infinite.

That was a big problem because I would never have the assurance no one would suspect the computer was expecting a floppy disk. The only solution to my problem was still in the future. I needed a silent storage device which could be overwritten at any time and I could easily remove and carry with me. Unfortunately, at that time it did not exist.

So Cloaker was grounded to collect cyber-spider-web and byte-dust.

Learn about Lockix at http://www.lockix.com/