Is There Any Point To Using The Keychain API On iPhone?
I’ve always liked the Keychain technology in Mac OS X. Sure, the API is notoriously confusing and awkward, but the end-user benefits are compelling: • Secure, encrypted storage for all passwords and keys. • Items can be shared between applications—so in principle you don’t have to enter a given password more than once, since other apps will find the existing item in the keychain. • Items have access control lists, so they can be restricted to certain apps. • The user can “lock” the keychain, requiring a passphrase to be entered before there’s any further access to it. This happens by default when the system goes to sleep, which is a good security feature especially for laptops. • If an app’s code changes, it has to ask permission to use the keychain again (protects against malicious code patches) For the past few weeks’ worth of Copious Spare Time, I’ve been trying to get my MYCrypto framework, which is in part a friendly API to the Keychain, to run on iPhone. The iPhone has a Keychain
