Show HN: FIPSPad – a FIPS 140-3 and NIST SP 800-53 minimal Notepad app in Rust

8 pointsposted 2 days ago
by keepamovin

3 Comments

keepamovin

2 days ago

This app refuses to run unless it can prove your OS is providing a FIPS-approved cryptographic surface.

Windows: It queries BCryptGetFipsAlgorithmMode.

macOS: It strictly allowlists versions with valid Apple crypto certifications.

The result is if the check fails, it quits. No bundled crypto fallback. No "continue anyway."

It's a "deliberately boring" experiment to see what happens when you apply strict NIST SP 800-53 controls to a tiny, offline MVP.

It is written in Rust. The source is available for inspection.

wazzaps

a day ago

Can we get a human-written reason for why this exists? Since the project itself is quite obviously vibe coded...

keepamovin

a day ago

Does being able to detect vibe coding make you smarter than the AIs? I think it might. wow you are so smart!