IronKey Unveils Self-Destructing USB Flash Drive 191
fysdt writes to share that IronKey has released a USB flash drive with self-destruct capability. Specializing in "secure flash drives," IronKey has launched the S200 aimed at government and enterprise customers, "featuring hardened physical security, the latest Cryptochip technology, active anti-malware and enhanced management capabilities. It's the 'first and only USB storage device to achieve FIPS 140-2, Level 3 validation' and delivers advanced Cryptochip featuring AES-256, tamper-resistance and self-destruction circuitry."
Re:Rip-off (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can break it with a hammer remotely, you should really be selling that capability- pretty sure someone would want to buy it.
Until then, the self destruct does work remotely.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where's the market? (Score:5, Insightful)
How would you transport a few gigabytes to a new location?
FTP?
External HD.
DVD?
And very large number of floppies?
I take my source code home with me on a USB drive. I currently encrypt it but I could see this being even better.
The Market (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, there are a great number of wildly popular products for which I am not in the market.
Thermite (Score:3, Insightful)
I keep wanting to build a flash drive with a thermite filler and some kind of rip-strip fuse that you could just yank on hard to set it off.
No offence to IronKey, but how do you know that it's really, really, destroyed your data beyond recovery? Maybe it just locks out the disk controller. A small heap of smouldering slag is much more definitive.
Now, if you could combine the thermite with their remote wipe protocols......
A hacker challenge (Score:5, Insightful)
what iron key should do is go to DEFCON with a bunch of these drives and then run a contest
If you can crack the drive you get some obscenely large amount of money
how to run the contest fairly
have the contents of the drive detail how to get to an offshore account with the prize money
So Ironkey how much you want to bet this key is "secure"
Re:Oops... (Score:2, Insightful)
Call IT support and tell them that you were not doing anything in particular when the computer did it by itself.
Then tell everyone else that IT support failed to fix the problem costing the company thousands of dollars of spreadsheets.
Re:Encryption is just as good as self destruction (Score:5, Insightful)
So you think that will make the evil ones stop torturing the password out of you? They'll use that same crowbar to make you remember it! ^^
(Interlude: WTF. I have my adblocker disabled for the first time in months, and the first thing I see, is an Ironkey banner. Truly a slashvertisement.)
The point is, that the keyfile on your USB key is encrypted with your password. So if you destroy the keyfile, which would open your encrypted safe, your password gets useless. You could scream it to the whole world. It wouldn't matter. Nobody could open that thing now. Not even you.
And that is why you never let someone know that you want access to his system. ^^
Just use a keylogger, or a trojan horse, and be good. Become a cleaning person in that place. Or gain some trust otherwise.
If you need it: There are some internal CIA agent training manuals on the net, that can teach you this. Or if you can speak Russias, I recommend some Russian forums. ^^
Re:Encryption is just as good as self destruction (Score:3, Insightful)
Especially for students at larger universities where there are people who lurk in the 24 hour computer labs just looking for a USB flash drive to steal. With a stolen USB flash drive, they can either sell the done homework, or if someone has a paper for a popular class that isn't turned in, actually take the word processing document and call it theirs.
Sorry, but I have to call nonsense on this. Sure, there are people who steal flash drives. They get the drive, and that's benefit enough - any electronic dividends are just icing.
But to posit that there are people who specifically look to steal USB drives so they can sell the done homework (do they take orders? is there a clearinghouse?) or by wild coincidence exploit the tiny window between a paper being due and a student writing it (which is no more than 24 hours most of the time!) coupled with the coincidence of being in the same class, is pretty unlikely.
I'm not saying it couldn't happen, or that perhaps it hasn't happened once in the past, but I am skeptical that there are organized rings of "lurkers" in every university's computer lab. I bet 99.99% of flash drives are stolen, looked over ("yawn, Art History notes - and dude, she listens to David Archuleta, LOL!") and formatted.
Re:Ironkey also supports Linux! (Score:3, Insightful)
Since I don't have any copies of that software, it pretty much doubles the cost of the drive
Go to a cybercafe?
Re:Encryption is just as good as self destruction (Score:3, Insightful)
The identity manger also allows you to log into sensitive sites without worrying about keystroke loggers.
If there is a hardware keystroke manager on a machine that you plug the ironkey into, or even a USB data monitor, your IronKey password is their's.
If a machine is compromised, and you plug this into that machine, your data is compromised as soon as you unlock it.