Kingston's got a thing for
über-secure flash drives, and its latest DataTraveler definitely keeps
the trend alive. The waterproof BlackBox is the outfit's first Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)-validated drive, which means that it was given the seal of approval from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Communications Security Establishment of the Government of Canada. More specifically, you'll find "256-bit hardware-based AES encryption via a dedicated processor which automatically encrypts and decrypts data on the fly" and it'll also enter lock down mode if you happen to forget your password ten consecutive times. Of course, Kingston's pretty proud of this thing, so don't be shocked when you see the $165 (2GB), $242 (4GB) and $424 (8GB) price tags, alright? Alright.
[Via
Electronista]
posted Apr 16th 2008 6:31AM
ooohhh water proof
Better than yelling ooooohhhh First.
$424 for 8 gigs, are you kidding ?
AES 256-bit encryption ... dam i might as well watch grass grow than spend my time cracking that T_T
unless of course its the top secret documents of aliens =]
I think I'll stick with my Ironkey
Yeah i agree, i'll stick with my ironkey as well! Way cheaper, and has more features then just strong encryption!
I think I'll stick to my standard USB key and TrueCrypt ;o)
ha true that!
gosh~$424 (8GB)!!!
spend a lil more, & you could get an Eeepc
Doesn't Ironkey already do these things and more?
What's wrong with having a TrueCrypt volume on a USB drive instead?
Nothing!
To read it you would need to install truecrypt, and I hope and trust the government (and financial institutions) don't allow you to just install any software you like on their computers.
Why don't you just have a regular partition with a hidden volume. Keep the TrueCrypt.exe in the regular one and then all of your data in the hidden volume?
Yeah exactly
Or @Wwhat... TrueCrypt is/can be a portable app. Just keep that on spare space on the USB drive!
Now I know where all my tax-payers money disappears to, buying stuff like this without any research!
If somebody gets access to your hardware encrypted stick he simply can't read it.
With truecrypted stick they could do this kind of attack:
1) copy your encrypted store
2) replace truecrypt.exe with one that asks key and emails it to them
3) start using copied store
@iipee
Just never allow TrueCrypt to access the internet.
Well it is certified for the goverment so I would say $424 is a steal in that regard. Though I really do wonder if the intergrated hardware encryption complete with decryption coprocessor is really worth the extra $400.
However, I'm pretty sure the $400 could have been better spent developing some system so that the fed employees don't lose the damn thing in the first place. If they can lose hundreds of laptops a year, how many of these can they lose?
Canada, eh? Can you encrypt your MP3's of Bryan Adams and your JPEGS of Guy LaFleur?
I KEEED... I love Canada!
I'm just glad you didn't say Celine Dion ;-)
are people THAT concerned about data security to pay THAT much?
Haha 256 bit encryption... holy crap just give me a couple 8 gigs for my school stuff and I will fine. I'm surprised that it got so much approval. I'm sure government can crack it if they will allow it, so we still have to be quiet about all the government secrets everyone has stored on their flash drives...darn.
This is not for personal use. This will only be for commercial use. Big companies transporting important data. I can't see this being used by the general public. Seriously. My data just needs to be portable, not portable and locked up like Alkatraz.
The price is a bit silly, you can get VIA CPU with hardware encryption circuitry for something like what? 25 bucks? so add that and a few extra components and you'd not need to charge $242 fur 2GB surely, and why does the price go up exponentially anyway, the basic encryption hardware is special but to add more cheap flash should not cost hundreds.
But I see the logic, get companies to write it off their tax, and get the government to use tax-money to make them rich, it's the smart thing to do, especially since the government is dumb and will pay quadruple guaranteed.
Government approved because they have a backdoor?
I'd rather buy an Ironkey - which I have reasons to believe is far more secure than this Kingston.
Reason to belive?
IronKey is 128bit AES VS 256 AES
256-bit AES encryption is not twice as strong as AES - twice 128-bit encryption would be 129-bit encryption. In fact, 256-bit AES is the square of the strength of 128-bit.
That means AES 256-bit encryption is 340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times as secure as 128-bit.
And that enormous difference is the reason why AES 256-bit meets the minimum standards for the most data
So, you still think they're the same?
this is a test comment
Just to be clear again about Truecrypt :
TrueCrypt can be "installed" on a USB drive but you
can not use it if Truecrypt is not already installed on a PC.
http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=administrator-privileges
So Truecrypt is not a fully portable solution.