Hi - this is my first post as a week-old 770 user and a newbie on this site. Please excuse me if this is the wrong area for this topic, but I felt it doesn't quite fit under the Applications area either. I'd love to hear other peoples' thoughts, and recommendations for apps on this, so let me set up with some background..

Like I presume many others here, I'm quite interested in turning my 770 from just an Internet terminal to an Internet-enabled PDA with functionalities geared to managing data such as calendar, contacts etc in addition to enabling me convenient access to the 'net in situations where carrying a laptop would be too unwieldy, and access via a phone (which I prefer to be small) would be too restricting. Lets say Internet banking as an example.

Now, this pretty much makes things security sensitive. I would prefer to keep my calendar and contacts to myself, but in particular I want to ensure that access to my email accounts, sensitive web sites, and possibly documents that I may have stored on the MMC remain confidential even if the device was stolen.

At the same time, I obviously would also like its use to remain convenient. Having to unlock the device with a password every time I'd like to check the news or a weather update would not be convenient, and in particular should I want to lend the device to some friend for a few minutes for her to check her email on it, unlocking access to my sensitive informantion would be counterproductive.

So, a PIN-code lockdown of the device for any use is not the right approach. This apparently is also the conclusion reached by someone else in a similar analysis: http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc/nokia770/security.html

A method to lock access to encrypted documents, Password Safe (or similar app - maybe the GNOME Keyring will be introduced on Maemo as well at some point?), email and IM accounts etc but leave the non-sensitive parts of the device open would be better. Do any practical approaches to this already exist?

Tangentially, what do you people think about the optimal method to do authentication on the device? Passwords and PIN codes are obviously doable, but are they the best method, given that the touchscreen could be used for signature recognition, or the microphone for voice fingerprint analysis? Obviously neither of these methods is suitable for all situations and would probably need a backup method (likely a password), but I feel either should be more convenient, and probably faster in many common scenarios. I don't know about the feasibility of either on the current hardware though, not having any experience of its limitations at this point.