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Vando

How protection works

Five words. That’s the whole idea.

Everything you save has a lock. You choose how strong: Easy, Just me or Fort Knox. Your keys are how you prove it’s you: your face or fingerprint, your phone, your security key. Stronger locks need more keys. If you lose keys, your spares get you back in.

The five words

Things
What you save: a password, a passkey, a two-step code, a note, a file.
Locks
Every thing has one. It says what it takes to open it.
Keys
How you prove it’s you. Your face, your phone, your security key.
Levels
How strong a lock is. Easy, Just me or Fort Knox.
Spares
Keys that get you back in when you lose one.

When you save something, Vando asks one question: “How much do you want to lock this up?” If you don’t choose, it’s Just me.

Three levels

Vando sets what each level means, and nobody can change it. So Fort Knox always means Fort Knox, for you and for anyone you share with.

Easy

Opens whenever your vault is open.

You opened Vando on this device a little while ago, with your face, fingerprint or passcode. It stays open for a while, like the passwords saved in your browser.

For: Netflix, the Wi-Fi, the gym.

Just me · the default

Prove it’s me, now, for this thing.

One strong key every time, like your face or fingerprint. Or two lighter keys from different places.

For: email, shopping, most logins.

Fort Knox

Nobody but me.

Two keys from different places, and one of them is your strongest: a security key or the code in your safe.

For: your bank, recovery codes, the keys to your business.

Levels are a minimum. Anything stronger counts too. Want more? “More options” lets you add rules on top, like “only on my laptop” or “must include my security key”. Rules only ever make a lock stronger.

Keys, from strongest to weakest

A key is one way to prove it’s you. Some are harder to steal than others, and Vando tells you which.

  1. Strongest A security key, or the code in your safeA security key is a small key you tap on your phone or plug in. The code in your safe is your printed recovery kit. Both are things a thief has to physically take.
  2. Strong Your face or fingerprint on your phone, or another device of yoursYour device’s secure chip holds a key that can’t be copied off it, and it only works after your face or fingerprint. On an iPhone, that’s Face ID.
  3. Good Your device’s PIN or passcode, a password you chose for Vando, a code from a code appSomeone could watch you type these. The code-app code is checked by Vando on our server; the others are checked on your device.
  4. Weak A code we email youOnly as safe as your email. checked by Vando
  5. Weakest A text message code, or security questionsPhone numbers get stolen and answers get guessed. Too weak to open any level on their own. checked by Vando

Vando works with the strongest three rungs. Email codes, text codes and questions are on the ladder so you can see why we’re wary of them. Most keys are checked on your own device; the few checked on our server always carry the label checked by Vando.

Different places

Two keys only count as two when they live in different places: one in your phone, one on your keyring, one in your safe. Someone who takes one place doesn’t get the others. Banks use the same rule for payments.

Keys inside the vault don’t open the vault

Vando keeps your two-step codes for websites. Those codes work for the bank’s website, never for opening Vando itself. A key locked inside the box can’t open the box.

Saving is a postbox

Anyone can drop a letter into a postbox. Only the key opens it.

So saving something to Vando, from any of your devices, needs no proof at all. Even a Fort Knox thing. Opening it is what needs the keys: “Saved. Opening it needs your security key.”

Spare keys, not a back door

A house with two doors is only as safe as the weaker door. So Vando doesn’t add a second, weaker door for when you lose a key. You get spare keys to the same lock.

Spares

A Fort Knox lock asks for a spare strong key when you set it up: a second security key, or the code in your safe. A lock can say “any 2 of these 3 keys”, so losing one isn’t the end.

Time lock

Like a bank vault, slow on purpose. If a lock has a weaker way in, it only opens after a wait, such as 48 hours. A thief can’t hurry it.

Alarm

And loud. The moment a slow way in starts, every one of your devices is told, and any of them can cancel it.

Strength is shown, not promised. A thing is as safe as its weakest way in, and the screen says so: “Fort Knox · spare keys open it after 48 h, every device is told.”

Loosening a lock needs the lock

Making a lock stronger is instant. Making it weaker means opening it first, with the keys it already asks for. The lock guards its own weakening, and your other devices are told either way.

New keys wait their turn

A new key opens nothing until your strongest key approves it, or a day passes with every device told and nobody saying no. Removing a key waits the same way.

What a stolen, unlocked phone gets

Say someone grabs your phone while it’s open, and they know your passcode.

And from any other device, or with the code in your safe, you can cut the phone off. Its keys stop working at once.

What if I lose everything?

  1. Lost your phone?Use another of your devices, or your security key, and carry on. Then cut the lost phone off.
  2. Lost every device?The code in your safe gets you back in after a 48-hour wait. Every device and your email are told at the start, so if it isn’t you, you can stop it.
  3. Lost the code in your safe too?Then your Fort Knox things stay shut. That is what Fort Knox means. Vando won’t let you save one without a way back in unless you tick “if I lose these keys, it’s gone”.
  4. Why can’t you just reset it for me?Because then anyone who fooled us could too. We can’t open your things, so we can’t hand them to someone pretending to be you. Keep the code in your safe somewhere safe.

Coming with Vando for your people

Sharing keeps the level

Open it where it lives

Share a thing and the other person opens it at the same level, with their own keys. Fort Knox for Sarah means her face and her own security key. If she has no security key, the share screen says so.

A copy is a photocopy

Or give her a copy, with its own clearly labelled lock. A copy is a new thing. It never weakens yours, and it shows in your history.

Nothing here is new

Every idea above is an old one that already guards money. Vando puts them together for the things on your phone.