> ---------- > From: Tyler Durden[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 9:52 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Deniable Thumbdrive? > > I got a hold of a little gadget recently that is very nearly perfect for > certain forms of data storage. It's called a "Thumbdrive" and I bought it > online somewhere (64Meg for about $179 or so). > > The cool thing about this drive (small enough that it has holes for use as > a > keychain) is that it's got a "Public" area and a private area, and the > private area is accessible (if one desires) only via the little > fingerprint > reader on the top of the drive. (It's also USB based, and on Windows2000 > and > beyond you don't need any software drivers--just plug it in to a USB port > and it appears as a drive). > > ANyway, I was wondering. I'd really like a nice software mod of this thing > > so that, depending on which finger I use for verification, a different > private area on the drive will open (right now several users can be > assigned > access by the master user to use their fingerprint for access to the > single > private area). Of course, there should be no indication that there even IS > > more than one private area. > > So...anyone heard of such a hack/mod, or is there a straightforward way to > > go about doing it oneself? > > -TD > Try contacting Trek and see if you can suggest it.
What's you're threat model? If it's your wife or kid sister, this might work. If it's a major corporation or a government, forget it - they'll bitcopy the whole flash rom, and look at it with ease. Based on what I've seen, the fingerprint simply acts as a access control. The data on the chip is not encrypted. There are cheaper thumbdrives which use passwords which therefore don't leave any evidence binding a specific drive to a specific person - you said you wanted deniability, so leaving your thumbprint in the device is not desirable. That said, these are really neat gadgets. Our FSEs use them to carry around software tools and utilities - much easier than a box of floppies or CDs. Peter
