The CryptoCape is BeagleBone's first dedicated security daughterboard. As the BBB already has cryptographic accelerations, the chips on the CryptoCape provide the key isolation features discussed in the previous section. In the BeagleBone community, daughterboards are called capes which are analogous to Arduino shields. The CryptoCape contains several crypto ICs that you may use in your projects. The design is open source hardware, so you may also visit the SparkFun website to retrieve the design files. The CryptoCape contains the following major components:

If you imagine the BBB's Ethernet connector as a neck, then it appears that the cutouts of the attached daughterboard seem to wrap around it as if it were wearing a cape, hence the name. Also, Boris, the beagle mascot of BeagleBoard.org, looks more adorable in a cape.

Each of these chips and the associated circuits are clearly labeled on the CryptoCape board:

In the following sections, we'll briefly introduce each component and provide some example project ideas.