Shaped like a big old fashioned magnifying glass that Sherlock Holmes would be proud to own.
You move the device over the document and read the unencrypted plain-text.
So: you set up a PGP private/public key pair. Encrypt a standard document using your public key.
Software converts the encrypted bytes to a rectangular bit-map format : probably would have to contain some extra positional data. (Labeling smaller areas within the large bit map with x,y coords).
The "Magnifying glass" is actually a scanner on one side and an LCD display on the other.
First, hold the magnifying glass over the entire bitmap, then scan over sections - the text appearing on the display. Purely for effect, it could magnify the text as you moved in and out of the document.....
This device has no real actual real-world use that I can think, but it hold a certain novelty value - perhaps a child's toy.
It could come with a crooked pipe with a big fat glowing red LED in the end whose brightness varied when you 'dragged on' the pipe.
And a hat with flappy bits on this side. (Perhaps motorized-flaps, so you could emote 'aha!' moments when you discovered a clue etc).-- monojohnny, Sep 12 2008 Got so carried away with the mental image of the motorized flappy hat, I forgot mention (if it is not obvious already) that the magnifying glass has the PGP private key installed on it and decrypts the document on the fly.
The motorized flappy hat, magnifying glass and pipe could all be linked by bluetooth of course, so the magnifying glass distance-from-document could control the movement of the flaps and pipe-glow effect.-- monojohnny, Sep 12 2008 Unfortunately, you would have to move the magnifying glass over he whole document to see any of it.-- Voice, Sep 13 2008 And if anyone stole the magnifying glass, there goes your private key. You'd have to issue a new public key and hope everyone you correspond with knew about it.-- phoenix, Sep 13 2008 //you would have to move the magnifying glass over he whole document//
Yup, sure, but I already said that:
//First, hold the magnifying glass over the entire bitmap,//
//there goes your private key//
Ya..that's blows it....I guess you could PIN-protect it...but its just getting stupid....-- monojohnny, Sep 14 2008 random, halfbakery