"Gringotts," said Hagrid

	They had reached a snowy-white building which towered over the other
	little shops.

	"Like I said, yeh'd be mad to try an' rob it"

		--from "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone"
			by J.K.Rowling, her (c), 1997


Hi! :)
	A short preamble: Gringotts is the name of the inviolable wizard bank
in Harry Potter, known in all the wizardry world for the truculent fate
that awaits all the wannabe robbers. I think it's a quite fitting name
for a program which purpose is to secure sensitive data, isn't it? :-)

Gringotts is a small utility for Linux and other unices that allows you to
jot down sensitive data (passwords, credit card numbers, PINs, friends'
addresses) in an easy-to-read, easy-to-access, and most of all very
secure form. It is inspired by a similar program for Windows (sorry, I
can't remember its name) that I used for quite a while (when I was a
windows-ist)... and it was very useful!

For encryptions, Gringotts makes use of the libGringotts library, that
is based upon libMCrypt and MHash by Nikos Mavroyanopoulos; in addition,
it uses GTK+ 2 for the interface. Actually, it was born as a programming
exercise for these libraries, but the program itself is quite cute and
useful all the same... in my humble opinion!

Being Free Sofware, you're *encouraged* to take the code and do just
whatever you want with it... as long as you retain the original
copyright note, of course. Every contribution is more than welcome! Now
it's time to read INSTALL, or if you want to step into the project.
Please, do!

Have a nice day, and thank you very much,

    Mano :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------


	Features

This application aims to be as complete and (ehm) feature-ful (?) as
possible, but with a stress on lightness and simplicity. Currently it
features:

    * Fast, lightweight GTK2 interface
    * Good integration with GNOME, as well as all the other window managers
    * High stress on safety & security
    * Not only "normal" string passwords can be used, but any file can
      be the password to your data (see the In Depth <depth.htm> section
      on this). You can even use floppy disks!
	* It features a "password-expiration" system, that warns you when the
	  password gets too old.
    * Highly customizable
    * 8 encryption algorithms are available (via libGringotts):
          o The AES winner:
                + RIJNDAEL-128
          o AES finalists:
                + SERPENT
                + TWOFISH
          o Other AES contestants:
                + CAST 256
                + SAFER+
                + LOKI97
          o Other strong algorithms:
                + 3DES
                + RIJNDAEL-256
    * 2 160-bit hash algorithms, used to generate the key
          o SHA1
          o RIPEMD 160
    * 2 compression types, with 4 compression levels each
          o ZLib
          o BZip2
    * Complete & easy management of entries' order
	* Small files can be embedded into any entry
    * Complete Search function.
    * Very intuitive usability, you won't need any manual (yet :)
    * The standard linux file utility identifies Gringotts files
      correctly, from version 3.38

Of course, the program lacks of many, many features, still... please
feel free to write me <mailto:mano@pluto.linux.it> if you have some
particular wish!

------------------------------------------------------------------------


	The authors

This program has been originally designed & written by Germano Rizzo
(aka Mano) (aka me :-) <mano@pluto.linux.it>. I also translated it into
italian.

Additional (precious :-) coding and french translation by Nicholas
Pouillon (aka Nipo) <nipo@ssji.net>.

German translation by Hermann J. Beckers <hjb-rheine@t-online.de>.

Nice patches and a major bugfix by James Antill	<james@and.org>.

Many other people have given their unvaluable contribution to this
project. Not in any particular order:

	Bob Mathews <bobmathews@alumni.calpoly.edu>
	Anders Nordby <anders@FreeBSD.org>
	Gabriele Giorgetti <gabriele_giorgetti@tin.it>
	Lawrence MacIntyre <lpz@ornl.gov>
	Gianluca Montecchi <gianluca@pluto.linux.it>
	Kurt Hindenburg <khindenburg@iquest.net>
	Christos Zoulas <christos@zoulas.com>
	William McVey <wam@cisco.com>
	Dan Frezza <dan@frezza.org>
	Sébastien Bonnegent <sbonnegent@mediapps.com>
	Rene Puls <rene.puls@gmxpro.de>
	Phillip Hofmeister <plhofmei@zionlth.org>
	Kevin Tucker <kevintucker@optushome.com.au>
	Christian Lang <email@christian-lang.de>
	Pavel Tavoda <tavoda@thr.sk>
	Sherwin J. Singer <singer@chemistry.ohio-state.edu>

------------------------------------------------------------------------


	Copyright notes

The "Gringotts" application itself is (c) (better, copyleft) 2002 by 
Germano Rizzo <mano@pluto.linux.it>.

You can use, modify and redistribute them /as you wish/ (it's free
software! :), under the terms of the GNU General Public License
<http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html>, v.2 or later.

My deepest thanks to the Free Software Foundation <http://www.fsf.org>
and the GNU project <http://www.gnu.org>for having created such a
wonderful "philosophy"!

Being quoted by Joanna K. Rowling's books, the very name Gringotts could
be (c), (r) or (tm) by her or someone in her behalf, altough I'm not aware 
of it. In case I'm violating any law, just let me know.