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1GB USB Drive on a Keychain 274

Posted by CmdrTaco from the portable-pr0n dept.
sparcv9 writes "JMTek looks to be about ready to release a line of keychain-sized USB drives, ranging in capacity from 16MB to 1GB. The 1GB models are a bit pricey at almost $900US, but the 16, 32 and 64MB models are all under $100. These devices require no external power supply, claim a data retention of 10 years, and are 'driverless' -- which means that the drives will work under Linux, according to JMTek (see the 'Operating Systems' row in the specs table.)"
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1GB USB Drive on a Keychain More

1GB USB Drive on a Keychain

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  • This stuff has been on the market for a long time. Though it is cool stuff.

    Though, all I want for yule is a solid state harddrive that's as fast as ram...
  • From the cited spec page [usbdrive.com]
    * Windows 98 Drivers will be available for download

  • Tens years? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dozing ( 111230 )
    Nothing would last ten years on my key chain. If I don't lose them I break them.
    • You have a very good point. Right now I have a pretty solid aluminum caribiner on my keychain, and i see spots where it has been bent and had dents or small chuncks of metal taken out. Some women and men could use this, but not those of us that keep the keys in our pockets, throw them around sometimes, use them for tools, and whose keys generally have a rough life.

      and keys can be replaced... what if your data ws valuable on your keychain and you either broke it or lost your keys? the horror!

  • Smoking (Score:1, Troll)

    by Llama Keeper ( 7984 )
    Look Mom its my MP3 collection on my keychain... DOH I dropped it in the crapper.... well whats $900 between friends anyway.

  • Less than 1CM Thick? Use it in a camera! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:03PM (#2721425)
    According to the product spec page:


    67mm w/cap x 20mm x 9mm
    60mm w/o cap x 20mm x 9mm

    I'm not sure they have anything more than prototypes at the moment, but this is still a pretty nifty advance for people who need more storage for digital video and digital photography.

  • Uhm, this isn't new... (Score:2, Informative)

    by wjp3 ( 241343 )
    IBM has had the same thing out now for a while... I have one.

    Check out the 8mb model for $25...

    http://commerce.www.ibm.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce/Pr od uctDisplay?cntrfnbr=1&prmenbr=1&prnbr=SCC4513&cntr y=840&lang=en_US
    • IBM has had the same thing out now for a while... I have one.

      Check out the 8mb model for $25...

      ...and it has a ring through which it can be attached to a keychain. 8 megs is more than enough for a PGP/GPG key and a copy of PuTTY [greenend.org.uk]...looks like I'm snagging one of these. (BTW, the price is down to $23.75. Someone else provided a corrected link, but I might as well include it again [ibm.com].)
    • Sweet, thanks for the link. For ~$31 shipped, this is a hell of a deal. Will be great for transferring small files back and forth, and since I always have my keys with me, I won't have to go hunting for media to put things on.

      Just ordered one for myself...

  • What a nightmare for corporations (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lynchmenow ( 544715 ) <bryan.lynchNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:04PM (#2721429)
    Think of the opportunities for corporate espionage with these type of things. Is there a way to disable USB mass-storage devices in XP or 2000?
    • I'd be surprised if there weren't. You can disabled damn near anything through security policies. I know you can disable installing new drivers, so just don't include the mass storage driver in your base install and block users from installing new drivers....
    • You can easily disable the ability of a standard user to write to a USB device by using Group Policies. I'll have to go look it up, but there is an entry in the templates to disable seperate hardware devices. Just shut off the USB ports.
    • Today the missing drive with atomic secrets was found behind a Garfield coffee mug in an employee breakroom.
    • Corporations will have no problem. As soon as the user plugs the device in, the DMI software will automatically send an alert to management software saying "hey, I've detected an unauthorized device on computer 123456781. I've detected it as an Optical Mass Storage Device with serial number 933322331." We'll pop open the screen for that system, get the location of the machine and pay the user a friendly visit. Of course, it's possible the user has already gotten the data and is on his way out the door.

      It's the smaller shops that don't use or can't afford the management software that will have problems with this, as well as the companies that have lax desktop security standards and useless AUPs. In those cases, I suggest two-part epoxy. Epoxy the keyboard and mouse cables in (and reduce theft!), and epoxy nice sturdy plastic over the rest of the ports. Voila! With a lot of work, you can probably remove the cover to add devices or replace the mouse and keyboard, although it's probably easier cutting the cable and splicing the new one in.
      • Ok, try it like this:
        the DMI software will automatically send an alert to management software

        Copy data to local HD. (It is there. or can XP/windows 2000 boot remote and still perform)
        Unplug network.
        copy data to little unauthorized device.
        Unplug device.
        Power down pc.
        Leave office.

        Do this before the weekend and even in a secure environment you have quite some time.

  • Oops! (Score:2, Funny)

    by akincaid ( 471204 )
    I accidentally locked my drive in the car!
  • I am skeptical aboutthat claim. Something is needed to read and write to the drive. Plaus the line at the bottom of one of the pages:

    "* Windows 98 Drivers will be available for download"

    My guess is that it may use an exhisting driver, or the package you buy has one.

    • Drivers built into OS (Score:4, Informative)

      by RobertGraham ( 28990 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:08PM (#2721477) Homepage
      USB defines a generic storage device. A wide range of products, from actual harddrives to pseudo-drives can be used without any *additional* device drivers. This is why Win98 needs an update -- it didn't come with the generic storage device drivers.
    • I have an 8MB DiskOnKey [diskonkey.com] keyring, and it worked great when transferring files between a friend's WinME laptop and my PowerBook running OS X. No drivers required (except for the aforementioned Win98) means no drivers required. :)

      Personally I'd rather have a Firewire one instead. Transferring 1GB over USB would take quite a while.

    • Perhaps "Generic Drivered"? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Christopher B. Brown ( 1267 ) <cbbrowne@gmail.com> on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:13PM (#2721525) Homepage
      It appears that it uses some form of generic disk storage protocol.

      In recent Linux releases, there is a USB_STORAGE driver that can be included in the kernel; I would presume that's what they're referring to, at least vis-a-vis Linux support.

      It's entirely likely that three years ago, W98 didn't include drivers for disk storage devices, thus meaning that if you want to use the device with W98, you need such a "generic driver."

      Similarly, Windows NT 4 is getting pretty old; it likely didn't include support for USB storage devices either.

      In a sense, this may be regarded kind of like having SCSI support. You do need a SCSI driver to access SCSI devices, but once you've got that, there's no special driver for Seagate drives as compared to Quantum or IBM...

  • if they would market a couple of portable MP3 players that could stream right from one of these. Not only mp3 players, but anything that requires portable storage.. digital cameras with video, etc.

    • Re:Might catch on (Score:2, Interesting)

      by alister667 ( 254980 )
      I agree, an small mp3 player that had a USB port to allow connection to a 128M or 256M keyring HD would be very neat. The only problem is that the MP3 device would need to supply the power via the USB to the keyring HD. I don't see specs on power consumption, but I suspect the whole ensemble would eat batteries! Otherwise very nice.

  • IBM Disk on Key (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cancrman ( 24472 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:05PM (#2721440) Homepage
    I've got one of the IBM keychain dealies. It's only 8mb, but it's actually quite handy for data transfers. My parents have a slow modem (as opposed to a fast one? anyway) at their house and no CD burner. Sometimes I have to get some work done there and the 8mb of the IBM fits all of my Excel sheets just fine.

    While 8mb has been fine for the 6 months I've had the thing, of course these new releases will force me to upgrade.

    On thing though, its a serious Pain In The Ass to try and plug one of these things in blind. I've got a USB hub at home, but they really aren't all that common yet.

    Pete
  • For $900 why not buy a PDA... or two? More functional, more storage space, and you're less likely to lose it. It's just ridiculous, and I don't see anybody buying it except to say, "Hey! Look what I got!"
  • the site's a bit low on details, no? i want a bit more tech info. for example, if it's driverless, why list the three(Win32, MacOS, and Linux) OS's they "support" at all? shouldn't anything with USB drivers work? and, oh, why're they making Win32 drivers available, if it's driveress?

    personally, i'll hold out for a firewire version. transfering up to 1GB at USB speeds is a bit slow for me.
    • Because there is a standard driver for USB harddrives. If you follow the standard in making your harddrive (or memory card drive) it will work without additional drivers. BUT! it does require the operating system to know this standards, win98 doesn't have the standard driver (thats why it says on bottom, comes with windows 98 driver), windows 2000, ME, and XP include this driver, as well as Mac OS 8.6 and above. Linux 2.4 comes with standard driver, but linux 2.2 doesn't. You can get the driver for linux 2.2 though.
    • Because if they don't list the operating systems supported most people would assumme Windows only!

  • You've got to want this for size or coolness... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Spamalamadingdong ( 323207 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:07PM (#2721464) Homepage Journal
    ... because CD-R media are a heck of a lot cheaper until you've burned quite a few. At least the price will eventually come down.

    But I really don't see what it's good for. Storing lots of stuff? CD-R or CD-RW; your computer probably has a drive already, and you can stash more data than even the 1/2 GB drive. Holding encryption keys? You want something a lot smaller, cheaper and more rugged. Having something neat to put in your pocket? Okay, but that's not going to sell lots of them.

    • Re:You've got to want this for size or coolness... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Quizme2000 ( 323961 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:41PM (#2721763) Homepage Journal
      Well, I can tell you what is bad for...Security. Especially with win2000/XP automatic detection of USB devices it could be used as a effective delivery device for worm/virus packages to machines without or with protected email and Internet access. With the 1gig size you could certainly steal a lot of data very easily. So what if you the most secure firewall and email protection. Are you screening your maintenance people, your temp workers? With a little social engineering this device could be very dangerous, easy to conceal, even through metal detectors with the phrase "Oh, my keys set it off". Sorry if I'm little excited about it, I'm just a Spy Novel fan and have a really good caffeine buzz too.

      Dell has been selling 8-32Mb [dell.com] versions for more than a year, but they require a driver install
      • Especially with win2000/XP automatic detection of USB devices it could be used as a effective delivery device for worm/virus packages to machines without or with protected email and Internet access.

        FUD. Or please explain how exactly you are going to get it to execute anything when plugged in? When you plug this in, it's like plugging in a CF memory card. XP might ask you whether you want to download pictures/music off it, but other than that its harmless.
        • It's not out of the question at all. The devices have a small processor inside to allow them to work without drivers, and to appear as a hard drive. It would probably be completely trivial to make it show up as a CD-ROM drive instead, and stick an autoplay.inf on the thing. Most of the computers these days come configured to run the autoplay executable without question or notice, so you could run a small executable by just plugging the thing in.
      • I'm not sure how anything is executed by simply inserting the device. I didn't see that described in the article.

        Also, physical security is the first step in any computer security. If your maintenance people having access to your workers PCs is a security concern, these keys aren't going to affect that one way or another.

        If I was in maintenance and wanted your data, I wouldn't screw around with a key. I'd open up your system and take your hard disk, or just take the whole damn machine.
    • Some software (i.e., some Mac audio apps) uses "disk authorisation" as copy protection; i.e., it won't run unless a signed disk is attached. Which makes moving between your desktop and laptop a hassle. Format one of these, authorise it and you can take it between the two machines, using it as a universal dongle of sorts.
  • According to their specs, this thing runs "driverless" on Win98SE, Me, 2000, XP / Mac OS 8.6 ~ 10.1 / Linux 2.4. I assume that just means you mount it and you're good to go?

    One thing the specs didn't touch on was how many times the "drive" can be written to? I know that memory like this has a limited life, similar to a digital camera. I think this is a good idea, but it would be a pain to plug this thing in the BACK of the computer, just to access your work. (Yes, most computers still have the USB port in the back.)

    also, it's a pity that we are so close to usb 2.0 becoming a vialbe solution. I guess speed is not that important to most people, but i would prefer a firewire or USB2 keychain drive - the cost to build one would be about the same.

    So does this compete in the market with zip disks, cd-r's, floppy disks, clik! disks, and portable usb hard drives? seems like a pretty tight market to me...

  • Driverless (Score:2, Redundant)

    by interiot ( 50685 )
    All USB drives are "driverless" because the USB spec details the interface to a "USB Mass Storage Device". Each OS only has to implement one USB storage device driver, and then all USB drives will work on it. Linux's can be found here [one-eyed-alien.net].
    • There are USB scanners with great Linux drivers, for instance... but they're not in the majority, because every damn scanner company has to solve the "tell the scanner to scan something and give me the image back" problem with their own half-assed protocol.

      This isn't just a Linux thing, too - don't you love it when, running Windows, you can just have a piece of hardware start working without you futzing around with separate driver disks? The only way that happens is when the hardware significantly predates your version of Windows (i.e. not often) or when it follows some standard that Windows already knows how to support. It's so much more fun to install a new hard drive (even internally) than, say, a new video card.

      Video cards, at least, are advancing by leaps and bounds and so have an excuse for rapidly changing hardware protocols. But scanners? Webcams?

  • Buy those things locally (Score:4, Informative)

    by nweaver ( 113078 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:08PM (#2721474) Homepage
    Various companies make them (flash USB key drives), they are a VERY nice solution for sneakerneting, however the reliability sometimes SUCKS (typical consumer grade, not tested before shipping).

    We ordered 2 of em from a different company, one worked fine and dandy, the other had a bad connection somewhere internally and would crash the USB bus and only mount about 1/8 of the time. They were $80 each for 64 MB versions (a good price, mind you), but next time, we will only buy locally, so that returns can be much easier.
  • I wonder if there's any security mechanism for these things to discourage theft and protect the data in the event of loss. Imagine how many lunch hour thieves would wander through the office pulling these things out of USB ports otherwise.
    • I'm using DriveCrypt [drivecrypt.com] on my 16MB USB pendrive to store private/sensitive data in a virtual encrypted drive. I like this product because you can install the encryption drivers right on the USB pendrive itself and use it on any system without installing the encryption drivers. When mounting the the encrypted drive the driver asks for the password and I'm AOK as long as I don't share the encrypted drive.

      If my pendrive is stolen I at least know that my private data is unusable.

  • Christ in a squeeze-bottle (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hatless ( 8275 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:09PM (#2721491)
    These are teensy little flash memory cards with USB connectors and IDE-over-USB emulation like most of today's flash-memory technologies.

    The prices are the same or a smidgen higher than the same size CompactFlash, Smartmedia, Memory Stick or MMC cards.

    And they've been out for more than a year, though the 512MB and 1GB models are pretty recent. The idea is they're an alternative to shuttling a small batch of files around on a Zip disk or such, or burning a CD.

    As for actual hard drives, for half that $900 figure you can get a PC Card drive for your laptop that holds 5GB though like IBM Microdrives it's obviously a bit more delicate. And you can get pocket-sized 30GB Firewire and USB 2 drives for the same $400 or so these days.

    What doesn't get posted to Slashdot these days? When will we be hearing about someone discovering Dim Sum? Or asking for resources on learning how to drive a stick-shift?

  • Geeky Lamentations (Score:5, Funny)

    by Zen Mastuh ( 456254 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:11PM (#2721508)
    • Shit! I just gouged my keychain drive with my Leatherman tool!
    • Man, all I did was just sat down my 1GB pocket drive got crushed--there goes $900!

    Sounds like a good, cynical business model--very fragile yet expensive products target-marketed to savvy techies with high disposable incomes.

    • Hell I keep complete sets of spare keys at and at work, I would lose or misplace my keys once or twice a month when on call. What about a plastic cap to protect the connector prongs. I could deal with(well almost) losing the 8Mb $40 dollar gizmo, but $899 I would have to take out some insurence for it. For perspective, Gold bullion is about $280 a troy .oz, I'll just keep using my compact USB/Firewire 20 gig drive for that price.

      Drop keys

  • some downsides (Score:3, Informative)

    by ageitgey ( 216346 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:11PM (#2721511) Homepage
    The read speed is 800kbytes/sec and the write speed is 500Kbytes/sec. They sound cool and all, but thats just like a glorified CDRW.


    I can already stick a cdrw in my pocket :)

  • M-Systems DiskOnKey seems to offer the exact same features. They're great geek gifts since they cost around $40-$50 for a 16MB version and, like this product, don't need drivers (except for win98). Works fine with MacOS9 and X and Linux.

    Importantly, you could have been buying them for the last year instead of having to wait until the 20th of this month. I love mine, beats using a floppy anyday (although you'll want to get a couple USB extender cables unless you're lucky enough to have frontside USB ports).

    http://www.diskonkey.com/
  • but the 16, 32 and 64MB models are all under $100
    Realistically, this is pretty much the same as a SmartMedia flash card. I got a 64mb card for $45 the other day. Plus, Flash doesn't have any moving parts, and is pretty much resistant to shock.

    I guess I'll just wait till the $900 1gb model comes down in price...

    Anyone remember how great the Iomega ClickDrive was supposed to be? Now its just another portable pseudo-flash medium.

    --Fred

  • Speed (Score:2, Informative)

    by staili ( 200478 )
    Data Access Rate:
    over 1MB/sec (read)
    800 KB/sec (write)

    So reading/writing that 1GB would take.. ummmm... forever.

    • Re:Speed (Score:2, Interesting)

      by magarity ( 164372 )
      20 minutes to completely fill the thing. But I don't think the target market isn't supposed to max the capacity each time it's used. Meanwhile, it looks a little sturdier and scratch-resistant compared to a CD-R... That's a little slow but we may be spoiled: consider that it's twice the speed of an RLL hard drive. Wait a year or two and that speed will double. Meanwhile early adopters can buy this current model and fund the company until faster technology becomes available for the rest of us.

  • I'd hate to send my portable storage device through the washing machine by accident if it's not...

  • Could this at last be the end of crappy, unreliable floppy drives that haven't grown since the days of the 40 MB hard drive? Oh please, oh please, oh please . . .

  • from the portable-pr0n dept
    I can see it now:

    Is that a keychain in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:20PM (#2721588)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:make your own (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Voila`! A big ugly piece of crapola that won't fit in your pocket.
    • You have a very... interesting definition of "instant"...
    • If you only have two systems that you spread your data across, buy two compact flash readers (or smart media readers) and just use a CF card (or SM card).

      If you have a system that doesn't have USB, but does have a floppy, use the SM option. You can buy an adapter that lets a system read an SM card in a floppy drive.

      If you have a notebook without USB, use the CF option. Buy a CF - pc card adapter.

      Either of these options will let you expand your CF / SM "drive" with new memory as the market changes. It also lets you spread your data across different cards if you have to. It also works as a beautiful add-on for digital cameras that don't support USB.

      The down side is that CF and SM cards don't have a little loop on them for your keychain.

  • Encryption Key (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cortek ( 165100 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:23PM (#2721610)
    You could store one hell of an encryption key on that keychain.

    How many bit encryption would that be?
    • Well, at 8 bits per byte, that would be 8 billion bits I suppose. That number of bits is uncountable in a lifetime, but the value it could represent probably doesn't even have an english equivalent.

      32 bits = ~4 billion values
      64 bits = 4 billion x 4 billion (does this even have a word?)
      96 bits = 4 billion x 4 billion x 4 billion (holy freaking)
      128 bits = 4 billion x 4 billion x 4 billion x 4 billion (IPv6 addressing? aieee!)

      Well, you get the idea. And I stopped at 16 bytes!
  • This is very cool. But it is only one component that I need alongside my Leatherman. When they can put my 21 inch monitor on my keychain, then I'll be impressed.

    -db
  • OK, 1GB *might* be interesting, but for smaller sizes (16-128MB), I don't see the gain over flash memory. Did I miss anything?
  • Personally, I prefer IBM's marketing of their MicroDrive.

    http://65.119.30.151/productimage/22-147-001-01.JP G

  • This is a good way to store all those 4096 bit keys with your physical ones. Just don't lose that ring!

  • works on audrey? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by levendis ( 67993 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:37PM (#2721719) Homepage
    Anyone know if this will wokr on the 3Com Audrey? I haven't been able to find out if generic USB storage devices work on QNX...
  • I just thought of something REALLY cool :)

    Suppose you and a friend have sensitive data, and you ONLY want yourselves to have access to it. Here's what you do...

    Get a USB hub and 2 of these, hook them both up to a linux box, then use RAID to span a partition across them. That way, you can ONLY get the information when both of you are there, and anyone wanting it would have to steal/kill both of you to get it. It makes it a bit more harder brings you that much closer to Mission Impossible :)
    • Er, No.

      They'll be able to recover bits and pieces, most likely all of the data if you span the drives. And if your mirror them it's obviously pointless.

      This could be made to work as you describe (use one key as a One-Time-Pad XOR for the other), but it's not quite that easy. :)

      • Well it would work if the data was encrypted as well as being spanned across the devices. Retrieving the bits and pieces from one of the devices would be meaningless.

        Probably not all that practical, and there are better ways, but a cool idea none-the-less... :)

        One better way would be to have the private key spanned across the two devices, then there could be as much data to retrieve as you like on the disk, but you'd need both devices to unlock it.

        All funky stuff - then again, if I was going that route, then I'd rather have something even smaller, such as iButton [ibutton.com] or something. :)

        -- Pete.

  • I've got a 128MB DiskOnKey - these rock! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jht ( 5006 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:39PM (#2721747) Homepage Journal
    I just recently started using a DiskOnkey (the 128MB model), and it's a terrific device. They cost about $150 each, and it's about 50% longer (and about 5 or so mm wider) than the Leatherman Micra I carry on my keychain, just to give you a size idea. There are smaller devices (like the Q Drive), but the DiskOnKey is rugged as hell, and so far has stood up to quite the beating.

    What's it good for? Well, in my case, I'm using it to hold a set of Windows sysadmin tools (a VNC installer, Terminal Server client software, and a few other utilities), along with a full electronic copy of my company DR plan, and a ton of policy/procedure documents. With all that, I still have room to shuttle files around as well.

    In fact, it's been so handy that we're replacing our printed copies of many off-site manuals with these. That way, it's much easier to keep up-to-date, and all we need to access everything is a computer with USB support and the ability to read HTML, PDF, and Word documents.

    The coolest thing I found is that they're bootable, too - I just need to put an OS on one and it's an even better toolkit. Is the storage as cost-effective as CD-ROM? Of course not - it doesn't hold nearly as much, and the 128MB device, as I mentioned, cost $150. But it's far more rugged than a CD, and can be used in all sorts of circumstances where a CD can't. Heck, even a lot of the stripped-down PCs that are used in corporate IT shops have free USB ports.
  • I don't know about keychains, but a regular part of my bag is a small box (say 5 x 3 x 0.75 in) that just plugs in (via cable) into any USB port. USB 2.0 capable and all in all cost about $200. I am quite happy with it.

    Eh? What? Size? Oh, it's 20 Gb :-)

    Actually, this is just a box with IDE &lt-&gt USB electronics into which you can put any standard laptop hard drive (and I put a 20Gb one in). Draws power from the USB port and is truly plug-and-play. Highly convenient. Recommended.

  • price changed (Score:2, Redundant)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 )
    The price on the website cited for the 1G USB drive is $700, not $900.

  • GnuPG and Whisper32 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LinuxHam ( 52232 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:56PM (#2721860) Homepage Journal
    I, too, have the IBM 8MB model. First of all, its AWESOME for storing my GnuPG keyring, and my Whisper32 password file. I finally feel like I'm doing GnuPG the right way.. like the extremists keeping the floppy in their pocket, inserting it only at the moments you need it for encrypting/decrypting. Now to move my critical private files to my pure USB PC and gpg 'em. Should make for a secure, console-access file server.

    For the remaining 7.8MB, I keep a bunch of small files that I would need most when I don't have my Thinkpad around -- my Notes ID file, some presentations that I've been working on for clients, and all the things I forget to save when I blow away the laptop.. the ethernet and modem drivers for one! (That's a mean catch-22) I also keep small installers that often give me trouble when downloading.. putty, AdAware spyware removal tool, Netscape 6 installer, LeetSpeak for genning passwords, Whisper32, and AIM95N.

    Please people, stop comparing it to a PDA. They don't serve the same purpose at all.
    • The problem: you're still not safe if the machine you're using isn't 100% trusted, i.e.: a corporate desktop. There's nothing to say that once plugged in, the key can't be copied from this device to a local drive by a background process. Or, even innocently copied into a non-secure cache.

      OTOH, if we could use this in conjunction with some sort of encrypted FS, our designated safe dir (or the whole partition if you'd like) can only be accessed when this "key" is inserted. That'd be kinda nice (though I'm not trying to push this as an alternative to the above key store - it's just as risky on an untrusted machine).
  • Could this be used as part of a crypto key management system?
  • Is there such a thing as a BIOS supporting a bootable USB disk?

    It would be killer to use something like this as a drive on a fanless PC with a tiny Linux install.

  • This gives a whole new meaning to, "Oh #$%!ing #$%*&! I lost my keys!

    Were I to lose such a keychain, I'd be more concerned than if my car were stolen or destroyed. Goodness, my car isn't worth that.
  • ...a thingumbob[1] that does hardware RAID-0 on two of these things.[2] Then it's perfect.
    The fact is, I've a) become really really distrustful of all built-in hard-drives, after having like three or four of them fail (in two different home computers) within a two year period, two of them being "redundant" and failing at once, and not just the controller, and, what's more, with very clean power coming in. I just don't trust anything with moving parts anymore. Truth is, one gigabyte is more than enough for everything I need except media files, which don't need to be dynamically backed up (i.e. they only need one backup EVER, which is no-problem).
    Do you know what REAL security is? It's not in having a thirteen-character password with alphanumerics for root...what good is that if your file-system (hmmmm? ext2?) isn't encrypted? Anyone can break into your computer, steal your hard-drive (bad enough), then, to add insult to injury, read the bits off your partition, reconstruct all your personal files, and take up a long-distance relationship with your former girlfriend. Ouch.
    Anyway, real security isn't in having a long password: it's in having your hard-drive in your pocket when you leave your home. Plus, I think it would do us all good to have to constrain ourselves to a gigabyte...it would keep me from mindlessly copying huge directory structures to three or four places as version control, or a DVD that I'll only watch two or three times a month...wow, how useful that it's on my hard-drive? or all those CD images that I tell myself make it SO much more convenient to play these games that, really, I only get an opportunity to do a few times a month, and generally just be wasteful just because I "have the space"...it comes to bite you in the end, because there's no convenient way to do a backup. If you really need to copy whole CD's to hard-drive, do it on one mounted "spare" or "media" and keep it separate from your "real" (keychain USB) drive. Now if only linux could boot off USB as I hear a mac can....

    [1] that's the official word, not "thingamajig", according to my dictionary.
    [2] This is probably a ten-dollar piece of equipment. How hard can RAID-0 be? All you do is double every write and read request, and if you ever get a fail on any read or or write, start chirping like mad and somehow indicate which drive gave it to you. Of course, I'd hate to be the one writing the routine for what happens when the read of the two drives returns disparate bits...maybe you do a few more reads and if the drives stubbornly disagree about the state of the bit, ask the user, in the true linux fashion [whatever the equiviliant is to "Unable to read bit 4 of byte at F332D:2AAE4:F22A." with three buttons, one labelled one, one labelled zero, one labelled retry."] then ask him/her to replace whichever is the older one...

  • Made our own! (Score:3, Informative)

    by krokodil ( 110356 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @04:41PM (#2722231) Homepage
    My Sony Clie have proggie called MS Import (MS=Memory Stick) which when running makes it
    behave like USB storage device. I just put my Memory Stick card into it, run this program, plug it via
    USB cable to Linux and I can mount it as SCSI drive,
    having access to all my files on it. Best thing about it, is that you can have several cards.

    Yes, it is bigger than keychain, but what the heck,
    I carry my PDA with me all the time anyway!
  • This just occured to me.. Imagine the possibilities with this USB key when Linux comes out for the Playstation 2... 1 GB of instant removable storage.

    Anyone know what filesystem these keys use? It would definitely be an impressive hack if someone can get the PS2 to view it as a very big memory card. Or, vice versa, take a 8MB PS2 memory card and rig a USB adapter to it somehow for PC storage.. Just some ideas if anyone is bored..
  • is that some pr0n in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

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