

The Java Ring: A Wearable Computer (1998) - GuiA
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/javaring-wearable-computer/

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ChuckMcM
This was the coolest thing about JavaOne that year, I was particularly excited
about the strong encryption that was included on the ring ... oh wait. As it
turned out the encryption bits were embroiled with the state department etc
etc. To compensate I created an Enigma machine simulator[1] on mine :-)

I did eventually get my hands on a "fully enabled" ring, which I've still got.
As I recall the best it could do was 1024 bit RSA though.

[1] [http://www.javaworld.com/article/2076726/learn-java/my-
enigm...](http://www.javaworld.com/article/2076726/learn-java/my-enigmatic-
java-ring.html)

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moxie
IIRC they gave these out at the first Java One. You could program it with what
kind of coffee you liked, and hold it up to the coffee machines there. At the
time I worked at a company that also had a JavaStation (basically a SPARC that
only ran Java).

We all thought the JVM was about to revolutionize client software development
and break Microsoft (once everything ran on the JVM, MS wouldn't have an app
ecosystem that tied us to them). Meanwhile, the browser was staring us right
in the face, and it was server-side where the JVM blew up.

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bitwize
Ah, the late nineties, when the dream of "Java in ALL THE THINGS" was alive
and strong.

~~~
airplane
Is there a general consensus to why Embedded Java and other Java techs like
Java Card never took off?

~~~
q3k
JavaCard _did_ take off. More likely than not the SIM card in your phone runs
it, and so does your EMV/NFC bank card (if you have one).

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freehunter
I would really love something like this to be standardized for IAM (identity
and access management) purposes. Far too often the "something I have" is
forgotten or non-standard in security. "Something I know" is standardized as
passwords. "Something I am" is fairly standardized as fingerprints. But the
concept of "smart cards" still isn't there yet, for some reason.

If we could get rid of the "something I know" and go to "something I have" and
"something I am", network-based attacks would be that much more difficult. The
password is dead. With something like an RSA token, barring any breach of
RSA's algorithm (again) or a complete bypass of the authentication system
altogether, an attacker would need to be physically near me to compromise my
account (would need to steal my fingerprint AND my smart card).

And no, Google Authenticator isn't quite the same. I use it on all my
accounts, but it's just so damn inconvenient. A ring, a watch, or even an NFC
version of Google Authenticator would work so much better.

~~~
bickfordb
There is a Java card standard
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Card](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Card)

~~~
q3k
Although it's not much of an identity confirmation standard, more of a
programming standard for getting your code to run on a 8051 microcontroller in
a smart card.

Although you can quite easily go from that (if you have master keys and/or app
installation keys) into running, for example, OpenPGP [1].

[1] - [https://github.com/FluffyKaon/OpenPGP-
Card](https://github.com/FluffyKaon/OpenPGP-Card)

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ctdonath
An intriguing concept in its day. The real core of it was the Dallas
Semiconductor iButton
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Wire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Wire)

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schoen
I bought a developer kit at the time this came out and I was hoping to program
it to act like a tiny storage device to copy files from one machine to another
(like today's USB flash drives). I never got around to learning to use the SDK
and toolchain -- and definitely didn't know enough crypto at the time to try
to use it for some of the intended authentication applications!

I guess a lesson of the intervening decade and a half has been that almost
_nobody_ knows enough crypto for the applications they're trying to develop.
:-(

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lambdapower
I remember rolling my own authentication system using an iButton back in
college. I had it mounted on a key fob. Worked pretty well, you touched it to
the reader and typed in a 4 digit PIN.

Don't really understand why these didn't take off vs. a smart card for
authentication: as far as I know they're more durable and they're pretty
cheap.

~~~
oillio
We had these for the EE department doors in college. They were pretty cool.

Nowadays I don't want another key. I want a standardized RFID protocol (active
and passive). I have two office RFID cards, a key-fob for my car, a card for
the garage, my phone supports NFC and I get another card when I go to a hotel.
And they are all different and incompatible. I can't keep both of my office
cards in my wallet, because while they are not the same protocol, they are on
the same frequency and conflict.

It is maddening. I want my phone to act as an active NFC identity transmitter,
and I want a backup passive RFID card I can put in my wallet. It should be
simple to pair these two devices with all of these desperate systems.

Oh, and while I am at it, can my phone not be a whore about it and only
respond to receivers that I have expressly authorized.

Why is standardization so hard?

~~~
spiritplumber
I just don't lock my door. Or my car. Anyone interested in stealing my stuff
is probably more interested in skeletal integrity anyway.

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bussiere
i remember reading about this in an old good french computer magazine : Login

now you can put rfid in ring :)

~~~
GuiA
Oh man, I wouldn't be half the hacker I am today without Login: (and a few
other programming/linux zines I would buy in middle/high school). I was so sad
when they stopped publishing it. I still have a pile of them at my parent's
house... thanks for the memory :)

(France's press culture is much superior to any other country that I've been
to - when I go back to visit family, I always grab a pile of magazines to
bring back with me)

~~~
bussiere
yeah it was an awsome magazine, tech , prog news.

I miss it.

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agumonkey
And I thought it was too early to have ring computers. Time for some Alan Kay
nostalgia.

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esro360
Does it show the confirm the fact that java was cool tech only in late 90ties
?

~~~
currysausage
This doesn't need to be confirmed: LiveScript was renamed JavaScript back in
1995 so it would be percepted as hot.

On a more universal level, it shows just how ridiculous most buzzwords are. As
we laugh today about JavaScript and the Java Ring, we will laugh tomorrow
about today's ubiquity of the "cloud."

