Smoke-belching flash drive self-destructs on command

[tgell]

If zeroing a SSD drive isn't enough for you try one of these.

Article

[noone_particular]

Interesting idea, if you have data sensitive or controversial enough to require it.
As for the statement at the end of the article:

El Reg's storage desk can imagine a scenario in which the device is embedded in some military equipment that is about to fall into enemy hands. Then you could send it a signal to self-destruct. But fiddling about with button-ended wires? That's a Runcore gimmick, surely, designed to catch the attention of shallow-minded hacks, er, us.

The author is pretty shallow minded if he can't see the multitude of ways these can be modified to defend against physical access. The tamper switch on the PCs case. An emergency button on the floor or under the desk, on the door to the room, a hidden floor switch, motion detector, etc. Add a backup battery and the ways it can be used are almost endless.

[happyyarou666]

ill go with the motion detector , not to mention this is gimmicky and a waste of money who knows what backdoors there might be , not to mention simply using TC with hidden volume will keep any adversary from accessing your data , and destroying evidence can get you into more trouble not to mention arising alot more suspicion and having your ass tailed 24/7 356days, than encrypting a drive with TC, there was something similar in the past that had me interested too its called ironkey but its the same money making scheme, thats all it is , wasted money that could be invested somewhere more useful

[PaulyDefran]

I'm no lawyer, but if you are not notified of an investigation concerning digital evidence, how can you be in trouble for nuking the disk when you see the men in blue charging up the lawn for the first time? They could be at the wrong address...happens more than we think. I understand if you are arrested and bailed out on 1 June, and then later forensic investigation shows that stuff was deleted on 2 June...but if not...? That's why I run CCleaner and BleachBit, et al. as well as free space wipes on a schedule...it's been going on for years automatically...I would think an obstruction charge would be very unlikely in that case.

PD

[happyyarou666]

yeah well im just going from the worst case scenario and what would be the best way to go about the situation , you make a valid point about the charging up to the wrong address thou xD , and in your case no there wouldnt be an obstruction charge , as i said the entire self-destruct in a second gimmick is what gets you into hot water aka all the attention from the wrong people , and you wouldnt wanna run freespacewipes on an hidden volume btw asuming youre using TC

[xM5]

Originally Posted by happyyarou666

there was something similar in the past that had me interested too its called ironkey but its the same money making scheme, thats all it is , wasted money that could be invested somewhere more useful

I own an ironkey, it's the real deal. unhackable. there was also a lawsuit in the US that said if you had encrypted drives, the gov could not make you decrypt them because it would be self-incriminating. if the govie forensics cannot do it, you should be good. ironkey is unhackable and a lot of gov funding went into it so that it would be that way. as for destroying your own property, it's your own property.

[PaulyDefran]

The courts are 50/50 so far. The 11th Circuit ruled that you are protected, but the 10th (was going to) compel a pass phrase. That case is murky, because she had immunity (maybe it would have been a different ruling if she didn't?) and it turned out to be a moot point because her ex gave up the key. IronKey *looks* good, but I'd still stick a TC container inside it...visions of CryptoAG still lurk in the ether

PD

[happyyarou666]

ironkey does look sexy , thou im always carefull with things like these , perhaps in the near future ill check it out and just format it to a drive and do fde on it, that should take care of any backdoors , and about destroying your own property , well its not really that simple it depends on the country and the laws,in the US for example, if you're being busted and there are a whole bunch of destroyed media - thumb drives, flash cards or hard drives found at your home, then Id imagine that would go down fairly badly in court.

thou it depends on what would be worse to you in that case a charge for an obstruction of justice or them finding incriminating evidence against you that could lead to you being locked up for the rest of your life or killed , depends on where you live once again , im going by the most extreme example atm, thou id rather go for the first option then if at all , hell what is legal today could be the new illegal tomorrow wouldnt suprise me one bit

[happyyarou666]

another question to all ironkey owners would be ,does ironkey have the ability to make a w7 install disk out of it? so you could install w7 on a laptop without a cdrom , and if ,id asume that when you boot from the ironkey from bios it will first bring up a bootloader with a password lock and once entered the flash drives contents aka w7 install ? if it is so then i found another reason to get this device

[happyyarou666]

well...anybody?


p.s: yes i posted 3 x in a row cause im the only one replying xD ....-.-