I’ve been looking for a useful tool to aid note taking, but that I could also keep on a USB stick safely. I didn’t want to have to toy with encrypted filesystems or specialized programs to access it, and I’d like it to be cross platform.

I ran across TiddlyWiki. It’s a fully self-contained wiki page that completely self managed in javascript. The idea both terrified and intrigued me. Unfortunately, it lacked an encryption feature. With too much spare time on my hands, I wrote one. By cribbing Fritz Schneider’s javascript AES implementation, I was able to have a simple “tiddler” encrypter in a few hours.

Not only do I doubt that I’ve implemented this without mistake, I’d also be surprised if anyone is using it. It’s pretty slow when it has to do a lot of work. Feel free to try out the EncryptionPlugin yourself. If you’re using it, or your aware of any huge mistakes, I’d love to know. Unfortunately, it turns out I’ve only needed to use this once.

(Retrospective footnote: [1] My motivation for this tool was to have something I could use seamlessly for taking notes when doing security due diligence on-site for mergers and acquisitions. [2] At the time, I was lucky to call Fritz a colleague!)