Ruby Cipher HDD kit provides AES 256-bit hardware encryption
By Darren Murph 
posted September 16th 2008 5:43PM
posted September 16th 2008 5:43PM
posted September 16th 2008 5:43PM
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ruby ruby ruby so ho
phanbouy phanbouy phanbouy.... where do i start? first off it's Ruby Soho NOT ruby so ho as you put it.. and secondly.. you're missing one "ruby" ... the chorus goes "ruby ruby ruby ruby soho" ... don't believe me? check the shit out.... http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Moron-Bros-lyrics-Rancid/B2995965EEAB67CB48256D29002001FC
you have all the best rubies, dear
You didn't look hard enough.
eSata only case + cables etc is $99. eSata + USB is $119. They also have desktop bays that can hot swap laptop drives for around the same price.
PRON!!
HAPPY?
I wonder what you can put on this hdd!! Anyone?
drug sales and law enforcement payoff spreadsheets.
More engadget thinking...
More traditions!!!
Think!!
@ Mega Math
why don't you just say p0rn...
What are you smoking? Have you ever tried crack anything besides your pipe? MS NASA huh?
Or you can use the poor man's encryption software:
http://www.truecrypt.org/
Which can be cracked easily!! That's why this is on the market!!
@Mega Math: So far Truecrypt has been pretty strong. Do you have a link to a description of a successful attack on Truecrypt?
@ Sebastian
Pretty strong. But crackable. No sorry. Dont waste my time searching stuff for others!
And don't tell me it's safe and strong. They hack nuclear centers, FBI data, Microsoft NASA and all that crap!
Don't tell me that is secure!
Determined hackers are unstoppable.
Low rank me for saying the truth. So cheap.
@ Mega Math
Nope, sorry, you don't get to make a wild claim and then refuse to back it up. "Low rank me for saying the truth" Sorry, but the truth has to provable, and someone screaming about hacking "nuclear centers, FBI data, Microsoft NASA" just doesn't cut it.
You lose!
@mega math
We live in a world where, in theory, its possible that even quantum cryptography can be bypassed, long before it goes mainstream; nothing is truly safe, but thank goodness that in actuality, with good password strength and strong encryption, your data is safe practically safe, or not, then again, even if we have skeltons in our closet, most of us still take our chances.
Beside if you really have something that secretive, you would know better than to use what seems like a single layer of ... err, AES encryption, with rather limited plausible deniablity and probably backdoors by the vendor.
Well, if truecrypt is crackable (which it isn't without at least a few million dollar investment) then this hard drive kit is really easy to crack.
this kit = AES 256
truecrypt = up to AES 256 + Twofish 256 + Serpent 256
Oh, and nice job backing up your claims Mega dude.
looks fragile to me, i can smash it a little bit and remove the hdd, and... mega security gone! :)
Correct me if I'm wrong...and I very well may be way off here;
But, what is the point if someone physically gets a hold of your drive
and owns a screwdriver? Once they remove the enclosure,
don't they get access to the data then?
Unless I'm mistaken the hardware encrypts the data on the HDD, so if you just look at it without the HDD, then all you'll see is corrupt data.
I thought about what you just said, and if that were the case then that would make this device useless.
No, because the data was scrambled with AES before it was put on the hard drive. So if they crack open your drive, sure they can see data, but its a broken mess.
@Dee.
so what your saying is. Buy one. Put data on it. Take it off. Leave it anywhere. When you need it. Replug it.
You can encrypt any hdd. Buy one. Let your 15 friends use it!
Yay
Or store it somewhere in a safe and if someone breaks in then he has corrupted data. Which will be hacked and so on and he will get it.
Dee your wrong.
Again. That Guy and Luis you win!!
@David Vermillion
Broken mess!! CAN BE FIXED.
Stupid people. Do you know what recovery is!
RECOVER WHAT WAS LOST CORRUPTED...
It exists.
AES is used to scramble the data. A block of data comes in, and another block goes out to the drive that is the same size, but scrambled. If you read the drive without the hardware, or using the wrong key, you'll just get garbage. It won't even look to the O/S like the drive is formatted. Since they're using 256-bit keys, a brute force attack attempt to decrypt the data would take virtually forever, though obviously they could take the drive out, make copies and run multiple computers on it in parallel etc, so it might not be undoable. But in general unless there's a back door in AES that nobody but the NSA knows about, this is pretty secure. You should worry more about losing the keys...
"It exists."
Yes, recovery exists, but not for you: your brain is too damaged. Sorry.
In some studies, researchers have found out that AES can add increase in performance so having devises built in is nice.
I cant wait to see what other encryption things are out there in the future.
@ Sebastian
Follow That Guy and Luis.
Break it and get hold of the hdd. Or get a screwdriver.
Do you need me to get you a video that shows how to take it apart?
yeah, Mega Math is my cousin, and he's just being annoying for the sake of it
@mega math:
Why so complicated? All there is to it is to find the drive, and the unique key, then you can access that guy's compromising data;anyway, there is no need to open the enclosure, at all; beside you need to find a place to plug in the key.
Any reason why all those idiot companies that announce "sorry, one of our employees took home a drive with 50M social security numbers on it and his car was broken int to" don't use something as basic as an encrypted harddrive like this?
@MegaMath:
I think you still not get the point. Low rank for all your post ;-)
Truecrypt is good, and free. The only problem is you won't be able to carry around and plug and play anywhere (able to do that but not that easy and straight forward). With this ruby, you could bring the HDD and use it just like a normal portable harddisk. Encryption and decryption will be on the go and performed at hardware base. The only problem that I could see is that you might need the USB decipher key with you. So if you lost it, you might have problem.
Remember the weakest link in encryption is human factor. Imagine is someone torture you to get the key.
I think that a combination of TrueCrypt on a USB drive plus an encrypted portable HDD is better than the drive in the article plus the encryption key. Mainly for the plausible deniability feature.
Oh, and does anyone think that the MegaMath troll sounds like Beavis' hyperactive alter ego, The Great Cornholio?
"You can take me, but you cannot take my bunghole! For I have no bunghole."
Well the company obviously has a backup of everything. So work for the company. get the serial number of the drive and voila!
No more low ranking.
I love trucrypt ... I use it on my USB drive and its the perfect solution for moving between my home and work machines. I like the product but hesitant to deal with a physical key. I'll suck up the performance loss in software encryption for the cheaper solution for now.
I'm on the bandwagon.
@MegaMath:
Your an idiot.
"Your an idiot."
i-r-o-n-y
Actually, a full kit runs you $99 to $119, depending on whether you want eSATA or USB
http://www.addonics.com/products/ruby_cipher/ruby_exd.asp
MegaMath, either you really don't understand the method of encryption or you're a few IQ points lower than the rest of us. Physically removing the drive from the enclosure does nothing because the data is scrambled when put on the actual disk, its the same as encrypting a file on your hard drive and then saying that if you remove their HDD and put it in your PC you can read the data, thats not how it works. you need the decryption program to decrypt the data as it pulls it off the drive. I believe you're thinking along the lines of a passworded drive, which is an entirely different and ineffective method. A flash drive mgfr tried that, where they simply had a password on the hardware that connected the NAND to the USB interface, but the data on the NAND wasn't encrypted, just desolder the chips and feed em through your own interface and presto! all the data. That is not what this is.
if it were an internal 3.5" drive, it'd be Ruby on Rails. :-)
So if you want to back this sucker up, what do you do?
Do they offer a deal on two of these? Do they have a version that offers RAID 1 over two drives?
Say you take the drive out, and make an image of the scrambled drive to another identical drive. When the first one fails, would the second one work? I assume it would...
No matter what hardware or software data encryption method used, data is only as secure as the extent to which someone or some group is willing or able to go in order to get it. If 'they' want it badly enough, they'll get it.
Wow finally someone that understand what I meant. Man I wish everyone thought like John!
Props dude!
"...any 2.5-inch SATA drive that you've got laying around..."
Hens lay eggs. What does your SATA drive lay? Anyone? :p
@ MegaMath
Now, I can understand a little true ignorance, but you being so high and mighty and not backing up your mouth with your @$$ is pretty stupid. If you are wrong, admit it, don't just attack the person who proved you wrong. Everybody hates someone like that.
@ Article
Heh, that's pretty secure, but I see no real use for a HDD with that much security in anything less than an undisclosed military base. Would be overkill for pr0n. And overkill for Piracy too.