Abstract
In current times, strong encryption is becoming more important every day. Everyone
from banks, to governments, to small businesses, need a secure method of encrypting their
private information. Most current methods use software to perform the encryption of data and
require the user to know a username and/or password pair to successfully decrypt the data.
These systems are usually exposed to the public and require very strong keys to be created.
Our system will be a completely private system and will not require such complexities. The
devices on either end, the hard disc drive (HDD) to be encrypted and the device performing the
encryption/decryption, will have a method of uniquely identifying each other. Only once the
ends are verified will the encryption/decryption process begin. The user will not have to worry
about having a key to read the data or any username/password pairs. In a more advanced
configuration, we will require the user to identify themselves; either through a PIN or
fingerprint identification. All of this information will be stored on a flash memory chip that will
be contained within the device. A Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) will be used to store
the algorithms for the encryption/decryption process and will not require any client side
software. In the end, the device will be able to be used with very little setup or user
intervention. It will seamlessly provide a high level of encryption/decryption to sensitive data.
The entire process will occur in real]time due to the hardware based nature of the device.
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