Day one: what we are building

Nocta Labs builds security hardware and publishes the design files. Nocta One is the first device, and this is the first entry in the log.

What we are building

Nocta One is an offline hardware password manager. Pocket size, a 2.7 inch e-ink screen, its own battery, and it works standalone: no phone, no account, no service behind it. Bluetooth LE is optional, through a pre-certified module, and it can be off.

Credentials live on the device. That is the whole architecture, and it is why our claims can be short instead of long. There is no cloud to breach. Nothing phones home. Off means off.

What is public

The schematic, the board layout, the production files and a sourced bill of materials are in the repository under CERN-OHL-S v2, a strongly reciprocal licence, so anything derived from the design stays open too.

The enclosure is not published. The firmware is not published and its licence is undecided. We publish work that can be checked rather than describing work that cannot.

What happens next

Firmware in public once there is firmware worth reading. An enclosure that is an object rather than a bracket. Photographs of real boards.

We record it here as it happens: what we chose, what changed, and what we would do differently.

The newsletter carries the short version of the same thing. Nocta Labs also takes on client work, hardware security research and device prototyping, from a bare PCB through to a finished product. Our address is on the contact section.

Day one.