IEEE 1667 pledges secure portable storage for all

If you use a thumb-drive sans security your data is just a vacant USB port away from being thrown up on the internet, assets exposed to the world like some drunken heiress. Even secure devices, whether they use biometric scanners, hardware encryption, or even more extreme measures, all leave a lot to be desired: no standards means limited compatibility, and secure data you can't reliably access might as well be random strings of binary digits. The answer could be IEEE 1667, the "Standard Protocol for Authentication in Host Attachments of Transient Storage Devices." Among other things it would enable you to restrict where your thumb drive will work and, conversely, what thumb drives your machine will accept. If it becomes the standard it was born to be you'll be able to apply the same policies whether you're opening Windows 7, cuddling with Snow Leopard, or making jazz-hands with something a little less mainstream. Will it succeed? CNET's Jon Oltsik thinks Microsoft's support for the standard is a good omen and says "Let's all follow Redmond's lead in this case for the greater good." That's certainly not something you hear every day, but this time we're game.

[rumblejazz @ Nov 25th 2008 8:35AM]

I've lost all the data on my thumb drive! IEEE!!!!

[Stephen @ Nov 25th 2008 8:43AM]

If this is so good, I want to see the IEEE standard 330 iterations ago.

[Technex @ Nov 25th 2008 8:46AM]

01001001 01000101 01000101 01000101

[gook @ Nov 25th 2008 11:31AM]

binary solo!

[YTREWQ @ Nov 25th 2008 8:50AM]

I hope Iron Key takes this up as well. It'd be nice to have a uniform standard among different platforms.

[Ethan @ Nov 25th 2008 8:51AM]

They should give these things names. It's like they want them to be forgotten. But it seems clever. But not if I have to register my thumb drive if I visit an Internet café while on holiday in Spain or something.

[Professor STFU @ Nov 25th 2008 9:43AM]

one IEEE to rule them all

[balthazar @ Nov 25th 2008 11:41AM]

hey, its Fonzie! "IEEE!"

wait...

[waiownsyou @ Nov 25th 2008 11:44AM]

Commas are your friends,

[loocas @ Nov 25th 2008 12:32PM]

I love their logos! :)

[Jigen @ Nov 25th 2008 3:16PM]

I wonder what standard IEEE1337 would be?

[brokenkeyboard @ Nov 26th 2008 3:25PM]

there is none:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/standards.jsp?start=1300&end=1399

I was disappointed also.

[Osayi @ Nov 25th 2008 7:38PM]

"assets exposed to the world like some drunken heiress"—Ouch. Low blow, Tim. Low blow.