What happens to all of our precious keyboards, if this encryption tech, becomes the standard?
I could see this being baked in to the operating systems / and or pre-built computers, under the guise of security, so device manufactures can say that we need to use their peripherals with their computers and any thing else is not safe.
The more I think about it, the more this sounds like something Apple might try.
I think this is something that could take off on an corporate level, but I doubt we have much to worry about in the consumer space (beyond Apple, I could see them using something like this also) in the next few years. Although it is food for thought for sure!
I’m all for it, in regards to corporate / financial / medical security, but if it happens on the consumer front, I hope its in the form of a this device is compliant, where we could use an adapter box in between the computer and the peripherals. can be used for.
Could also throw a wrench in the ergonomic / RSI / pain relief / disability peripheral market.
This seems super useful for government and corporate computers, but useless for everything else.
That won’t be successful on the market for home users, this is targeted for very specific niche markets. The problem is that, when dealing with security, you are always trading safety over ease of use, and even within corporate environments it is hard to enforce security properly because of users’ complaints. Believe me, I see that at my daily work a lot.
I work in IT and I do agree. Getting users to comply with security requirements, can be a real headache.
Meh. Honestly I think it would be best to wait for more details before passing judgement on the actual tech but it sounds like a pain in the ass that few companies will actually buy into. But it is definitely not even plausible for consumer use, it’s not like they’re aiming to prevent people from using normal keyboards altogether.
What do you mean I’m not allowed to have a sticky note of my password on my monitor? 
Oh, and according to Cherry’s own copy about the board the encryption only blocks hardware keyloggers from working, which I was kind of wondering about. Most keyloggers are software anyway and if someone has physical access to your machine, you have bigger problems to worry about than keyloggers.
It’d be funny, if it wasn’t true…
Agreed, seems like the sort of thing that would be a windows enterprise edition feature and not even available for home users imo
The Cherry page is light on details:
“… the device can authenticate itself with a certificate and the key transmission is encrypted…”
Securing the keyboard to host interface is nothing new. Van Eck phreaking - Wikipedia dates back to the 1980s. The IBM TEMPEST keyboard, IBM Model F - Deskthority wiki, was one way to go about this. Acoustic attacks are a thing too.
I just hope that every keyboard uses a unique key, or else the system is broken. This strikes me as more security theater than anything else. Of course, if it’s just as secure as SSL, then maybe it’s on to something.
Now we just need a robot to sit at desks and slap people before they give info away from phishing. That would be the real security upgrade.
I’m upset because it’s not a mechanical keyboard. D:
Would love to see QMK support this