I recently reviewed the Lenovo Thinkpad, a keypad-secured USB 250GB external HDD, and judged it excellent. Would I say the same for this little secure thumbdrive? Well, it depends what you need it for. It might be a good idea to have a regular “backup backup” of your most sensitive and important information onto a little thing like this that you keep in a drawer. The combination part looks a little weird, but I’ve never understood those two-numbers-one-button things anyway.
£60, or about $90-100, is quite a lot to pay for this sort of security, so I guess it’s a good thing they’re out of stock. Plus, you have to order them at least six at a time. Honestly, though, if I ran a business where I dealt with serious financial data, confidential reports and so on, I’d have my employees use these things.
[via Geeky Gadgets and Gearfuse]
Let’s hope it’s not like many other similar looking drives where they use a simple XOR cipher to “encrypt” the contents and the stronger stuff for just the key. Add in lack of solid information about the manufacturer or the drive (like what algorithm they’re using) and I’d say be cautious. TrueCrypt and a regular flash drive is quite possibly more secure. Something like IronKey that’s FIPS 140-2 certified is also IMO a good way to go.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIPS_140-2
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9902.html#snakeoil
It looks cool… but I admit that in the meantime I use a USB drive that I trust. If you want to backup and encrypt your files you should also think of the consequences of others finding the external secure flash drive.
This is a great device for transporting sensitive information with peace of mind. And it will self-destruct if it falls into the hands of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. by mistake.