>> ARDUINO AND ATMEL LAUNCH SECURE WIFI CONNECTIVITY

A hardware based crypto-engine, just what the Internet of Things needs!

Arduino and Atmel just launched a WiFi Shield 101 to provide secure communications platform by integrating the Atmel crypto authentication device to provide a TLS platform and SoftAP for seamless programming. The cryptographic device provides industry accepted Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC-256, comparable to RSA-3072), Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-128) and Secure Hash (SHA-256) algorithms.

As security becomes a growing concern within the Internet of Things it is positive to see solutions like this being introduced, as it can provide a simple off the shield, turn-key solution for developers to integrate to help secure projects and keep the associated data private.

While a step in a right direction - this only provides a solution for devices that are connected over a WiFi connection, however provides little assistance for securing other forms of communication channels (standard ethernet, 4G/3G/GPRS and Serial based solutions).

It would be great to see an Arduino shield developed, or even the crypto chip integrated on standard Arduino boards offering an API that allows developers to utilize a hardware based solution to provide encryption on elementary data streams and use existing communication channels openly - which is currently only possible with software libraries that are overlooked due to limited program and memory space available.

*hint* *hint*

Atmel and Arduino, are you actually listening to what us developers are really looking for?