PinGuard is a small single-purpose tool, designed to provide a secure method of keeping
track of all your PIN numbers. Every credit card or bank card we carry, requires a PIN
(Personal Identification Number) to be used in addition to the card account number.
And in addition to that, your smartphone needs a PIN code to give you access to it's SIM
chip, everytime you switch it on.
PinGuard encrypts all your PIN codes with a four-character password and stores them to
disk. Your numbers are safe from prying eyes because they can only be viewed by those
who have the password. Anyone attempting to get to your PIN number without the right
password will receive a false PIN number.
Why does one need Pinguard?
If you have a couple of bankcards then you have probably as many pin codes to remember in order
to do your transactions with these cards. Yours truly received his 5th PIN-code recently. Well, you
can ask to change the codes and keep them all the same but it is ill advised to do so.
So, we need to store these numbers save from prying eyes, preferably in such a way that no
unauthorised person can stumble upon them haphazardly. This is where Pinguard can help you.
With Pinguard you only need to memorize one single password instead of several meaningless
numbers.
Pinguard PIN-encryption concept
Pinguard uses a 4 character password to scramble the 4 digit PIN-code. The encryption scheme
changes the appearance of the original PIN-code into a different PIN-code and stores it to a data
file. The password itself is not stored . Anyone who looks in the data-file or types in a incorrect
password is still presented with a apparently legitimate PIN-code. There's no way of knowing
whether the answer is wrong or right. Only you know it when you type in the correct password. So
only one password, which you supply and of course is meaningful to you, is enough to be able to
recall any or all of your PIN-codes.
Pinguard PIN password
Pinguard assumes you use one password to encrypt/decrypt your pin codes. Pinguard asks for the
password at runtime when you want to see a pin code, edit or add one. After this, Pinguard will
not ask the PIN code again until the next session. So, if you do use a different password for each
card, you will have to change the session password by means of the File-Change Password menu
option.
If you need to change the password for encryption of an existing card in the data file, you should
first enter the new password and after that edit the card. The presented PIN code will of course be
incorrect (it was encrypted with another password) but you can change it back in the correct PIN
code in the Edit Card form.
Be careful not to edit the PIN-code in the data file itself when you are not happy with the
decrypted result. Remember that every different word results into a different PIN-code
representation.
The Pinguard password is case insensitive, you can use either lower or uppercase.
Hint:
A proper password should not be your name or the name of a friend or relative. Take something
like 'SIAS' (Say It Ain't So) or 'MDSP' (My Difficult Secret Password), in other words, take
something that cannot be connected to you in any way with the possible exception of MFSF (My
Favourite Sport Football). Needless to say that all these examples are out of the question too.
How safe is Pinguard?
'Is it safe?' Are you kidding? Did you see 'Marathon Man'? But seriously folks. You cannot be too
careful where PIN codes are concerned. If you trust your PIN codes to any medium, you are at
risk. But then again, even if you memorize them, they can be forced out of you. As for Pinguard, I
am not a great mathematician but I think it is difficult to work out the PIN-codes, if one does not
know either the password or one of the real PIN codes. I don't give any guarantees. It is up to you
to decide how safe PIN-guard is and if you want to use it at all.
When your card is not in the image list
I supplied a few bitmaps of cards that are known to me. No doubt you will find that one or more of
your cards are not on the list. I made these bitmaps with a great free tool, GIMP image
manipulation program and it is really dead easy. Take a screenshot of the logo and create a new
image from clipboard using GIMP. Select the image carefully around the edges and copy the
selection to the clipboard. Create again from clipboard and your card image is nearly finished.
Now scale it to Pinguards format of 78x53 pixels and export the result to Pinguards images folder.
Pinguard recognises both .BMP ,.JPG and .PNG file extensions.
