Lazybit

A new beta of Password Carrier is now available, it brings Vista compatibility into the game; 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista are both supported.

Other changes:

• An error was fixed - at times the program would fail if the number of collected credentials would exceed a certain threshold;
• Inactivity is now shown via a tray-icon (the program locks itself if the computer is left unattended)

How to update

Simply extract the contents of the archive to the removable disk, overwriting the current files of the program. Make sure you do not delete any of your .dka files (the profiles that contain your identities, and the credentials associated with each identity).

The beta is in a stable state, there are no known issues with it. The program is now an official release, and can be retrieved from dekart.com.

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Why Password Carrier

Password Carrier is not just another form filler, it is much more than that, because:

• it was designed with security in mind - the collected data are encrypted with AES-256;
• biometric authentication can be used as a third authentication (along with "something you have" - the USB key, and "something you know" - the PIN);
• it is absolutely portable - works on any Windows system, does not require administrative privileges;
• all the private data are always with you, and updates happen on-the-fly - newly memorized passwords can be used on other computers, not only on the one on which they were captured;
• Password Carrier understands the meanings of the fields - so that if the design of the web-page is updated, it will still be able to figure out where to type in the data.

Password Carrier is an advanced form filling application, which has many tricks up its sleeve. It uses the most reliable encryption algorithm to keep your passwords secure, it works with biometric devices, it can be used directly from a removable drive, it is small and it doesn't get in your way. However, there is another important detail which is hidden beneath everything else - Password Carrier's intelligent approach to form-filling.

Our approach is that of understanding the meaning of each field in a form, and using that knowledge when you browse a site not visited previously. This offers a great advantage - if you purchase something in a web-store, your User Profile details will be used to fill in the forms. If you go to another site - you won't have to fill the forms in again, because your User Profile is the same. On the other hand, if Password Carrier 'blindly' filled in the forms with data you used previously, it would mean that when you visit a new site, you will have to manually fill in the fields once, and only after that the program will be able to take over and automate your actions.

The role of the User Profile is that of a business card - it contains your general details, which are 'plugged' into a form whenever they are requested. The user profile is an independent entity, and it is universal. In contrast, your other credentials such as username/password are not universal, instead you have a different set of credentials for each site you visit.

For instance, on www.siteA.com you are asked to enter a username and a password - Password Carrier will remember those and use the data in the future.

If www.siteB.com asks for your email and password - Password Carrier will use the email address specified in your profile, and it will only memorize the password (because your email address is globally unique, while the password for www.siteB.com is different from your other passwords).

However, some sites are not following the same logic. A typical example is Gmail, it uses your email address as a user ID, in this case Password Carrier provides the email address from your User Profile. If you enter another address in the field, it will be overridden by the email address from the User Profile (since it has the top priority) when the page is open again.

A workaround is to use your @gmail.com address as the email address of the User Profile. However, a problem may occur if you use multiple email addresses, and in some cases you have multiple accounts on the same site. You can deal with this by using multiple flash disks, each of them will represent one of your multiple identities on the web. The licensing policy allows you to use the same license for multiple instances of Password Carrier (on other USB drives that belong to you), as long as you are the only person who uses the drives.

Introducing identities

The future releases of Password Carrier will come with a new feature, which deals with the aforementioned problem. Identities will allow you to create multiple user profiles, as well as keep different sets of credentials for each profile.

Your work colleagues call you "Thomas Anderson", but when your shift is over, you go back home and post messages in newsgroups as "Neo"? No problem, Password Carrier's identity manager will handle that. You'll be able to switch from one identity to another with a few mouse-clicks, without having to restart the program. Each identity has its own user profile, and a separate storage for credentials entered on web-pages.