SanDisk introduces write-once WORM SD cards

SanDisk has been toying with this for eons, but it seems the pieces finally fell in place for the firm to kick out its very first write-once memory card. The cleverly titled WORM (Write Once Read Many) SD card will predictably be aimed at industries where unalterable content is vital, such as police investigations, court testimony, electronic voting, etc. According to SanDisk, there is "no physical way to alter or delete individual recorded files," but we'd wager that hackers at large would have a thing or two to say about that. Nevertheless, said units tout a 100-year archive life when kept under appropriate storage conditions, and while a 128MB iteration is the only one available now (more capacious versions are forthcoming), you'll have to "inquire" to see just how inflated the pricing is.

[Robert @ Jul 15th 2008 11:50AM]

Hm. The new film?

If this is cheap, I may buy some for emergencies.

If they come out with a CF that is larger than 1GB

I'm using them for clients.

[Harkonian @ Jul 15th 2008 4:29PM]

I can see it now. You insert the SD card into your Vista box so you can write important documents on it. Vista sees the SD card and thinks, "Hey, an extra GB of memory, ReadyBoost it!" And thus, your shiny new write once SD card now permanently reflects your current machine state.

[Sam Bambino @ Jul 15th 2008 11:50AM]

At first I thought this sounded like a stupid idea, but thinking about it this is genius.

[bohsocks @ Jul 15th 2008 11:51AM]

SD-R....

I'm not sure if I think this is lame or interesting....

......it sure would do a good job to consolidate evidence rooms at police stations.... but a WORM SD card seems sorta.... uh, why?

[Chuckles McGee @ Jul 15th 2008 1:37PM]

Maybe if you're taking pictures of industrial trade secrets, no one can make you delete your pictures, even if they tried. Swallow the SD card and run!!!

[Kris @ Jul 15th 2008 11:51AM]

I can't wait until HD movies come on cards like this. Optical technology is old, slow and less reliable.

Neat idea. I wonder if music, movies or maybe even video games (like PC games) will come on these in the future?

[bohsocks @ Jul 15th 2008 12:40PM]

I don't know -- Digital Distribution might beat it to the punch.....

Unless the newest game consoles had hard drives so big that you'd just pop this in and download it to the console -- would it be fast enough to run something off of these?

[Kingus @ Jul 15th 2008 1:21PM]

you will never be able to make sd cards as cheap as optical media

[Imabasser @ Jul 15th 2008 2:15PM]

Never say never.

I agree with Kris in that optical is outdated, slow, etc... Solid State is where the close future is heading. In all honesty I think we should ditch blue-ray and go straight to chips and high storage media players and home theaters.

[Phour ZwanZig @ Jul 15th 2008 10:58PM]

I can see it replacing CDs, no prob..

[Viru @ Jul 15th 2008 11:51AM]

Doesn't really seem useful, either ways any evidence on magnetic media or electronic media is normally disregarded by the court of law. The only crowd which will rush to buy it will be the ones who want to click their pics and then do not want them to get deleted no matter what happens. Wait! what about the USB worms, can they infect it and if they do, they can never be removed I assume?

[sockatume @ Jul 15th 2008 1:27PM]

Actually computer media is perfectly submittable as evidence, provided there's an adequate chain of custody and so on.

[MacGyver @ Jul 15th 2008 11:56AM]

And how does a WORM drive make it cleverly titled? Write-once CDs were called WORM drives when they first came out...

This sounds like a poor implementation of a good idea, to me... hackers will always have a field day with claims like this, and it will guarantee evidence rooms will continue to fill up with more crap. Digital watermarking is just as (un)safe, and doesn't require specialized hardware.

[Soccer Player @ Jul 15th 2008 12:13PM]

Exactly. "WORM" has been around as a storage media moniker for over 20 years....which doesn't make it "clever". It makes the writer "uninformed".

Also, I agree with the guy who says that courts won't use them....just like they won't use any other electronic media. Too easy to alter. The info on these cards could be altered simply by copying it off, altering it, and writing it to another card. Unless they provide unique, non-repeating, unalterable serial numbers internally and externally on these cards, they will only be a convenient non-deletable storage device.

[Blaine Oliver @ Jul 15th 2008 12:19PM]

W rite O nce R eadable M emory, see anyone can make worm into useful initials.

[Sean @ Jul 15th 2008 4:52PM]

Write Once Read Many

[dboobis @ Jul 15th 2008 11:56AM]

Umm...WORM is nothing new, it's been around for the best part of 25 years...

[Lowest Ranked @ Jul 15th 2008 3:33PM]

Yes, but which part was the best part?

[telepheedian @ Jul 15th 2008 5:49PM]

Definitely the first half or so.

[dboobis @ Jul 15th 2008 6:15PM]

The part I was born in, obviously

[mike @ Jul 15th 2008 12:08PM]

They have had WORM for a while now, I see it daily with Magnetic Media (Back up Tape).

[Tony C @ Jul 15th 2008 12:28PM]

Unless you have some special, magical backup tape, it's not Write Once -- you can write to it until the substrate breaks.

[Mike @ Jul 15th 2008 12:49PM]

Magical tape nothing... its called Worm Technology, its been around for a bit. Maxell, Imation, STK, HP, etc all make a form of it. try searching on the net for WORM TAPE and you will find a LOT of them.

We use these for customers who need to be ensured the data can not be altered (Usually legal reasons especially after Enron and such)

Before you try to be sarcastic calling it "Magical tape" try to do a little research.... WORM technology is not new.... this is just a new form it has developed into.

[ScottP @ Jul 15th 2008 12:12PM]

When I first saw these coming out a few months ago I emailed Sony and suggested they use these to put ebooks on, to be distributed in conjunction with a paper copy of the book.

[Darwin @ Jul 15th 2008 9:38PM]

Gee-whiz, that's really smart, guy. I'm sure they'd never have thought of that without you. Nor even the SD alliance, which was the whole point of having SD cards in the first place. You know, to have SECURE DIGITAL media.

[Echo1 @ Jul 15th 2008 12:19PM]

Bring on the "San WORMs"

( a Dune reference)

[BigD145 @ Jul 15th 2008 12:20PM]

Worthless piece o crap plastic thingie. Let's say you have a document. Let's say this document changes once a year, once a month, once a week, etc... New card everytime? F* that! Go away SanDisk. Your cards tend to have a slightly higher failure rate than Hong Kong knockoffs.

[Sam Bambino @ Jul 15th 2008 12:43PM]

Then you buy a standard SD card you stupid shit.

[Aguiluz @ Jul 15th 2008 1:15PM]

Actually, 128 MB can hold multiple versions of a document. A new file name for every time it is saved. When problems appear, you can revert to an older version.

[silverblackvoid @ Jul 15th 2008 2:22PM]

troll, i wish i could vote u down many times.

[Jeremy @ Jul 15th 2008 12:26PM]

This device really wouldn't be for consumer applications at all. This is really a niche storage device for regulated industries that have mandated standards for archiving. As was said, government agencies, financial institutions, etc. As far as 'hackers' interest in this device, I don't see the point unless it becomes a consumer medium, which I doubt it will.

[zunq @ Jul 15th 2008 12:40PM]

Actually these are going to be the next format that will eventually replace optical discs, initially in the mobile sector. Laptop makers would finally have a legitimate reason to ditch space hogging, mechanical DVD drives all together to replace it with just a rugged SD card slot.

[Chris @ Jul 15th 2008 12:35PM]

Why is there a lock on write once media?

[mike @ Jul 15th 2008 12:50PM]

Because the WORM technology you can continue to write to it over and over gain, but you can not change it once it has been written to. the lock may be to keep it from being written to any more, or perhaps its just a stock photo of a card that may not even be the WORM version.

[Tony @ Jul 15th 2008 12:41PM]

Probably because that is not the actual WORM card. Engadget just used a regular SD card for the effect.

[Andrew @ Jul 15th 2008 4:28PM]

Why not? I'm sure they'll include it so you can't write anything new to it like CDroms. Pop it into your digital camera so you can read, but can't write any new photos to it

[tamoghno @ Jul 15th 2008 12:40PM]

Whats the "lock" latch doing there ? Its supposed to be already " locked " right ?

[sockatume @ Jul 15th 2008 1:29PM]

It's a common-or-garden SD card, not a WORM card. The giveaway is surely its 2002-vintage 128MB capacity.

[ayyadavid @ Jul 15th 2008 12:42PM]

This utilized a technology called anti-fuse, which results permanent recording of information. The only thing hacker might be able to do is to record on the unused space.

[tamoghno @ Jul 15th 2008 12:48PM]

Whats the "lock" latch doing there ? Its supposed to be already " locked " right ?

[tamoghno @ Jul 15th 2008 12:48PM]

Whats the "lock" latch doing there ? Its supposed to be already " locked " right ?

[sockatume @ Jul 15th 2008 1:31PM]

I think Nintendo have done this already, albeit perhaps not in the same manner. The DS uses write-once flash memory cartridges for its games.

[doppl @ Jul 15th 2008 6:25PM]

Pretty sure the DS carts are just normal ROMs, with a wee bit of (normal) flash on them for game saves.

[John McDole @ Jul 15th 2008 2:03PM]

We've been doing this for a while in the digital STB (settop box) industry; its a physical attribute of the flash (and now CPUs!) that is unlikely to have a "hack" work around;

though I will say this; if there isn't a way to uniquely identify each and every card; it wont stop some one from man-in-the-middle copying, altering, and passing off a new card as original.

[John McDole @ Jul 15th 2008 2:04PM]

We've been doing this for a while in the digital STB (settop box) industry; its a physical attribute of the flash (and now CPUs!) that is unlikely to have a "hack" work around;

though I will say this; if there isn't a way to uniquely identify each and every card; it wont stop some one from man-in-the-middle copying, altering, and passing off a new card as original.

[tb @ Jul 15th 2008 2:26PM]

i personnally prefer WORN (write once, read never) like probably 99% of all my DVD backups

[kal326 @ Jul 15th 2008 2:30PM]

Call me old fashioned, but I think I'll stick with a closed session CD-R. Same idea, probably a lot cheaper, and certainly more widely supported. How many computers and other devices do you know of with a CD-ROM drive, ok now how many with flash card slots or available USB readers?

[Za @ Jul 16th 2008 1:10AM]

Or DVD-Rs, for that matter.

[bart @ Jul 15th 2008 3:08PM]

sounds like a great idea for medical equipment.

[Phil F @ Jul 15th 2008 3:25PM]

That is awesome. This would definitely help beef up the chain of custody on digital photos taken for law enforcement purposes. Too bad the camera issued to me by work doesn't use SD cards. Also, I don't know how cost-prohibitive using one of these cards would be, but based on my average first visit to a new site, I'd get anywhere from six to twenty sites on one card.