Microsoft develops USB gadget that extracts criminals’ computer data
- April 29th, 2008
- 4 Comments
It’s not all fancy, yet pointless, touch-sensitive tables and shoddily constructed video game systems for Microsoft . Nope. Now Redmond is getting involved in the gritty world of law enforcement, having developed a thumb drive that helps Johnny Law quickly extract information, encrypted or otherwise, from computers. The drive, adorably named COFEE, which doesn’t stand for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, snaps right into a criminal’s USB port, upon which The Law is able to execute any number of the device’s built-in 150 commands.
The device—oh, right, COFEE—has been in use since last June.
The advantage to law enforcement officers is that they don’t have to physically seize a computer in order to analyze its contents.
Use PGP if you’re paranoid. Or, you know, don’t commit crimes. That, too, will keep you out of the police’s crosshairs.
TheSPY (Who am I?)
7 months ago
And you know what? How about if autorun is disabled on the target pc? Hak.5 figured this out in 2006, and skiddies (script kiddies) have been infecting n00b’s computers since. Just google USB switchblade and USB hacksaw.
Whiskey (Who am I?)
7 months ago
What about the SuperWINPE DVD?
YPSehT (Who am I?)
7 months ago
>Or, you know, don’t commit crimes.
Wouldn’t bet on that one to safely “keep you out of the police’s crosshairs.”
Johnny Law (Who am I?)
7 months ago
As someone who was at this Conference and heard the speech, your article is horrible. The only thing this product does is automate the manual processes that computer forensic examiners were already using. There is nothing magical in it.